Avoid line break between content and :after

Question

I have a problem with a line break between the content of an HTML element and it's :after content. It's a sortable table and in the head of the table is a small arrow.

You can see it in this fiddle http://jsfiddle.net/ceuwob93/ or on this picture:

Obviously I don't want that line break in front of the arrow.

table {
    width: 300px;
}
thead {
    background-color: #ddd;
    border-bottom: 1px solid #bbb;
}
th.sort-down:after {
    content: '';
    float: right;
    margin-top: 7px;
    border-width: 0 4px 4px;
    border-style: solid;
    border-color: #404040 transparent;
}

Answer 1

You can do as suggested and give your columns fixed width, or if you want a more flexible approach, you can use positioning for your :after element.

 table {
        width: 300px;
    }
    thead {
        background-color: #ddd;
        border-bottom: 1px solid #bbb;
    }
    .sort-down {
        padding-right: 1.5em;
        position:relative;
    }
    .sort-down:after {
        content: '';
        position:absolute;
        top:7px;
        right:5px;
        border-width: 0 4px 4px;
        border-style: solid;
        border-color: #404040 transparent;
    }

<table>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>Column 1</th>
      <th class="sort-down">Problem</th>
      <th>Column 3</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>Some long long long Text</td>
      <td>Yes</td>
      <td>Some other long long long text</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>