Add Line Breaks
Paste a block of text, choose where the breaks go, and press Add Line Breaks. You can split after every sentence, wrap at a set number of characters or words, or break after any separator of up to five characters. The output shows how many lines you got. Free, no sign-up, and nothing is uploaded.
Break mode
How to Use the Line Break Adder
- Choose a break mode. After every sentence, Every N characters, Every N words, or After a delimiter.
- Set the number or the delimiter. The number box starts at 80 for both counting modes, so change it to what you need. The delimiter box takes up to five characters and starts as a comma.
- Paste your text and press Add Line Breaks. The output does not update as you type; press the button again after you change a setting.
- Copy the result. The line count sits under the output box. Clear empties both boxes.
The Four Modes, With Output
| Mode | Setting | Where the break goes | Input |
|---|---|---|---|
| After every sentence | none | After a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark that is followed by whitespace | A paragraph of prose |
| Every N characters | 24 | Before the word that would push the line past the limit | The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog near the river bank |
| Every N words | 5 | After every fifth word | The same sentence |
| After a delimiter | , | Straight after each delimiter, which stays on its line | apples, pears, plums, figs |
Every 24 characters
The quick brown fox\njumps over the lazy dog\nnear the river bank
Every 5 words
The quick brown fox jumps\nover the lazy dog near\nthe river bank
After a comma
apples,\npears,\nplums,\nfigs
In the examples, \n marks a line break. The 24-character result has lines of 19, 23 and 19 characters: the tool fills each line with as many whole words as fit, so the lines are never longer than your limit unless a single word is.
What to Watch For
- Abbreviations look like sentence ends. The sentence mode breaks after any full stop followed by a space, so "Dr. Smith disagrees, though." becomes "Dr." and "Smith disagrees, though." on two lines. The Sentence Splitter recognises common abbreviations and is the better choice for prose; use this mode when speed matters more than precision.
- Existing line breaks are not kept in the counting modes. Every N characters and Every N words treat the whole input as one string of words, so paragraph breaks disappear. Add line breaks to one paragraph at a time if you need to keep them.
- A long word is never cut. A URL or a long compound longer than the limit gets a line to itself and overshoots the limit.
- The delimiter stays at the end of its line. Breaking "a;b;;c" at ";" gives "a;", "b;", ";" and "c", because the empty piece between two delimiters carries one. To drop the delimiters afterwards, use Find and Replace.
- Characters are counted, not width. A limit of 80 characters counts every letter and space equally, so in a proportional font the lines will not line up. Use a monospaced font if they have to.
When Breaks Help
One sentence per line is a habit among people who write in LaTeX, Markdown or any plain-text format kept under version control: a change to one sentence then shows as a change to one line, not to a whole paragraph. Wrapping to a fixed width suits plain-text email, code comments and captions. Breaking after a comma or semicolon turns a pasted list into one item per line, ready to sort or number.
Which Tool Do You Need?
| If you want… | Use |
|---|---|
| Breaks added to a block of text | This Line Break Adder |
| Unwanted breaks from a PDF or email removed | Remove Line Breaks |
| Spaces and blank lines tidied | Extra Space Remover |
| One sentence per line, with abbreviations handled | Sentence Splitter |
| Text cut into chunks under a character limit | Text Splitter |
| A comma-separated list built from lines | Comma Separator |
| Each line numbered after you break it | Add Line Numbers |
Frequently Asked Questions
- How do I put each sentence on its own line?
- Choose After every sentence and press Add Line Breaks. The tool breaks after each full stop, question mark or exclamation mark that is followed by a space or line break, and trims the spaces around each sentence. Abbreviations such as "Dr." and "e.g." are treated as sentence ends, so check those lines.
- Can I wrap text at a fixed width without splitting words?
- Yes. Every N characters packs whole words onto each line until the next word would pass your limit, then starts a new line. Only a single word longer than the limit can run past it.
- What does Every N words do?
- It starts a new line after every N words, so with N set to 10 each line holds at most 10 words. This is handy for cue cards, subtitle drafts and checking how a long sentence reads in chunks.
- How does the delimiter mode work?
- Type a separator of up to five characters, such as a comma, a semicolon or a pipe, and the tool ends the line after each one. The delimiter stays on the line it ended, so "a, b, c" becomes "a,", "b," and "c". Use Find and Replace to remove the commas afterwards.
- Does it keep my paragraphs?
- Not in the character and word modes, which collapse all whitespace, including blank lines, before breaking the text. The sentence mode also drops the blank line after a paragraph that ends in a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark. Process one paragraph at a time if you need to keep them.
- Is my text uploaded or stored?
- No. The breaks are added in your browser and nothing is sent to a server. Closing the tab clears the text.