Sé que esto es bastante una respuesta tardía pero escribí un plugin de jQuery que apoyan el relleno de los elementos en línea (con separación de palabras) ver este jsFiddle:
http://jsfiddle.net/RxKek/
Código Plugin:
$.fn.outerHTML = function() {
// IE, Chrome & Safari will comply with the non-standard outerHTML, all others (FF) will have a fall-back for cloning
return (!this.length) ? this : (this[0].outerHTML || (
function (el) {
var div = document.createElement('div');
div.appendChild(el.cloneNode(true));
var contents = div.innerHTML;
div = null;
return contents;
})(this[0]));
};
/*
Requirements:
1. The container must NOT have a width!
2. The element needs to be formatted like this:
<div>text</div>
in stead of this:
<div>
text
</div>
*/
$.fn.fixInlineText = function (opt) {
return this.each(function() {
//First get the container width
var maxWidth = opt.width;
//Then get the width of the inline element
//To calculate the correct width the element needs to
//be 100% visible that's why we make it absolute first.
//We also do this to the container.
$(this).css("position", "absolute");
$(this).parent().css("position", "absolute").css("width", "200%");
var width = $(this).width();
$(this).css("position", "");
$(this).parent().css("position", "").css("width", "");
//Don't do anything if it fits
if (width < maxWidth) {
return;
}
//Check how many times the container fits within the box
var times = Math.ceil(width/maxWidth);
//Function for cleaning chunks
var cleanChunk = function (chunk) {
var thisChunkLength = chunk.length - 1;
if (chunk[0] == " ") chunk = chunk.substring(1);
if (chunk[thisChunkLength] == " ") chunk = chunk.substring(0, thisChunkLength);
return chunk;
};
//Divide the text into chunks
var text = $(this).html();
var textArr = text.split(" ");
var chunkLength = Math.ceil((textArr.length - 1)/times);
var chunks = [];
var curChunk = "";
var curChunkCount = 0;
var isParsingHtml = false;
//Loop through the text array and split it into chunks
for (var i in textArr) {
//When we are parsing HTML we don't want to count the
//spaces since the user doesn't see it.
if (isParsingHtml) {
//Check for a HTML end tag
if (/<\/[a-zA-Z]*>/.test(textArr[i]) || /[a-zA-Z]*>/.test(textArr[i])) {
isParsingHtml = false;
}
} else {
//Check for a HTML begin tag
if (/<[a-zA-Z]*/.test(textArr[i])) {
isParsingHtml = true;
}
}
//Calculate chunks
if (curChunkCount == (chunkLength - 1) && !isParsingHtml) {
curChunk += textArr[i] + " ";
chunks.push(cleanChunk(curChunk));
curChunk = "";
curChunkCount = -1;
} else if ((i == (textArr.length - 1))) {
curChunk += textArr[i];
chunks.push(cleanChunk(curChunk));
break;
} else {
curChunk += textArr[i] + " ";
}
if (!isParsingHtml) {
curChunkCount++;
}
}
//Convert chunks to new elements
var el = $($(this).html("").outerHTML());
for (var x in chunks) {
var new_el = el.clone().html(chunks[x]).addClass("text-render-el");
var new_el_container = $("<div/>").addClass("text-render-container");
new_el_container.append(new_el);
$(this).before(new_el_container);
}
//Finally remove the current element
$(this).remove();
});
};
'padding' funcionará para los elementos en línea también. –