Word Wrap / Hard Wrap

About this tool

The Word Wrap / Hard Wrap tool reformats text by inserting hard newlines so lines stay within a chosen column width. Unlike soft word wrap in text editors (which is only visual), hard wrapping embeds actual newline characters into the text. That matters for plain-text email (RFC 2822 recommends 78 characters or fewer), Git commit message bodies (72 columns), terminal output and code comments. Pick a width from 40 to 120 with the slider and click Wrap Text. The tool breaks only between words, so a single word longer than the width (a long URL, for example) stays on its own line. With Preserve paragraphs on, blank lines are kept and each paragraph is reflowed separately; existing line breaks inside a paragraph are joined first. The output panel shows the number of lines, the longest line and the word count.

Why use it

• Inserts real newlines — not just visual wrap — for plain-text portability.

• Column width slider from 40 to 120 characters.

• Word-boundary wrapping prevents broken words in the output.

• Ideal for emails, Git commits, terminal scripts, and code comments.

• Line count, longest-line and word-count stats verify the result.

• Preserves paragraph boundaries by leaving blank lines untouched.

How to use

1. Paste the text you want to wrap into the input area.
2. Drag the Column width slider (40-120, default 80).
3. Leave Preserve paragraphs on to keep blank lines between paragraphs, or turn it off to reflow everything as one block.
4. Click Wrap Text.
5. Check the Longest line stat to confirm no line exceeds your width.
6. Click Copy to copy the hard-wrapped output.

When it helps

• Formatting plain-text emails that require 76-character line limits.
• Wrapping Git commit message bodies at 72 characters per convention.
• Preparing terminal output or man page content with fixed line widths.
• Wrapping long code comments to fit within a project's line-length limit.
• Pre-formatting plain-text README files for old terminal viewers.
• Wrapping log file content to fit dashboard widgets with fixed column widths.

Examples

Tips

• Use 72 columns for Git commit message bodies — that is the universal convention.
• Use 76 or 78 for plain-text emails per RFC 2822 — leaves room for the leading '> ' in quoted replies.
• Use 80 for general terminal output — most legacy terminals are 80 wide.
• Long unbroken strings (URLs, hashes) are never split; shorten or break them by hand if a strict limit matters.
• After wrapping, paste into a fixed-width font editor to verify visual alignment.

Frequently Asked Questions

Glossary

Hard wrap

Inserting actual newline characters into text at a target column width — survives copy-paste.

Soft wrap

Visual-only line wrapping in an editor; the underlying text has no newlines.

Column width

The maximum number of characters allowed per line in a hard-wrapped document.

RFC 2822

The IETF standard for plain-text email message format, recommending lines under 78 characters.

Carriage return

The \r character, used (with \n) for Windows-style line endings.

Paragraph separator

A blank line that delimits paragraphs in plain text — preserved by good wrapping algorithms.