A method for segmenting text for layout on a web browser includes receiving a block of text at a client computer and defining a plurality of regular expressions, where a first regular expression in the plurality of regular expressions is used to search for a word or a word boundary. The client computer segments the block of text into a plurality of text segments, where the segmenting includes searching the block of text starting at a defined location for a first text segment that matches any of the plurality of regular expressions, adding the first text segment to the plurality of text segments, and updating the defined location to be located at the end of the first text segment within the block of text. The client computer then constructs a layout of the block of text using the plurality of text segments.