How can I remove bad line-breaks in desktop-icon text?

[watchpocket]

When I log in to my desktop workstation (Ubuntu-MATE 20.04.3; kernel 5.40-94-generic; MATE desktop environment; Caja file manager), the text for the desktop-icons has bad (too short) line-breaks, as seen in the attached screenshot-1 (at left, below).

It's especially galling that the split will occur in the middle of a word, as in:

downlo
ads

If I open any one of those icons shown in screenshot-1 and go to the "Edit" menu in Caja, then down to "Preferences," in Preferences under "Icon View Defaults," I have "Use compact layout" checked.

If I UN-CHECK and then RE-CHECK that box for "Use compact layout," the line-breaks instantly correct themselves from two lines into one line, as seen in the attached screenshot-2 (just below screenshot-1), where they look the way they should.

(If I leave the "Use compact layout" box UN-checked, the bad line-breaks remain in place.)

I've gone several times into Main Menu -> Appearance -> Fonts and made various adjustments to permanently correct this problem, to no avail.

I'm guessing there is a way to permanently fix this, but how?

[watchpocket]

Bumping this, hoping for suggestions.

[ricmarques]

Hi @watchpocket

I haven't experienced that issue with words getting split in several lines in desktop icons in Ubuntu MATE 20.04.

However, I've found an old conversation / discussion (back in 2016) describing that same problem / issue, that was posted also here in the Ubuntu MATE Community discussion forums, started by user @Timo The solution posted by user @Etamuk in that discussion, as I understand it, is related to something you wrote about the "Use compact layout" option. Specifically, according to my interpretation of that discussion, the solution seems to be the following:

1 - UNCHECK the "Use compact layout" checkbox in the "Icon View Defaults" section of the "Views" tab of the "File Management Preferences" of Caja settings (available in the "Edit" menu -> "Preferences" of Caja).

2 - Log out.

3 - Log back in.

The 2016 discussion that I'm talking about is the following:

Desktop Icon text looks broken

Hi, first of all thank you guys for realizing this amazing desktop! I recently switched from standard Ubuntu (I was using GNOME flashback desktop) to Ubuntu MATE and it feels so much better However I have trouble with the text under my desktop icons, which looks sort of broken: If a word is too long, the word is randomly cut and its 2nd part appears on the next line: https://www.dropbox.com/s/f934lwreqxx3fdi/Screenshot%20at%202016-09-14%2001%3A11%3A12.png?dl=0 For example Thunderbi…

At least in my case, that "Use compact layout" check box is unchecked and I think that I've never changed it.

I hope this helps

[watchpocket]

Indeed! It did help! That fixed it, and I will leave the "Use compact layout box" UN-checked henceforth. Thank you!

[ricmarques]

Hi, @watchpocket You're welcome! Thanks for having reported back and for confirming that unchecking the "Use compact layout" checkbox also worked for you.