Word Wrap

Word Wrap

Word Wrap Formatter rewraps text at a column width you choose, with hard or soft wrapping and the option to preserve blank lines.

How to use it

1. Paste your text and set the wrap column.
2. Choose hard wrap if long words should be broken rather than allowed to overhang.
3. Turn on Preserve blank lines to keep paragraph breaks.
4. Press Wrap and copy the output.

Hard wrap, soft wrap, and why 72 columns

Soft wrapping breaks between words, so a word longer than the column width overhangs. Hard wrapping breaks inside the word to guarantee no line exceeds the limit, which matters for fixed-width output but looks worse.

The traditional widths come from real constraints. Punched cards were 80 columns, and email settled on 72 so that quoted replies could add their angle brackets without pushing past 80. Both conventions survive in plain-text formats and commit messages.

When it helps

• Formatting a git commit message body to the conventional width.
• Preparing plain-text email that will not wrap raggedly in someone else's client.
• Fitting text into a fixed-width terminal display.
• Reflowing a paragraph after editing broke the line lengths.

Common mistakes

• Hard wrapping prose that will be displayed in a variable-width window. The reader's own wrapping will fight your line breaks.
• Wrapping code or Markdown tables, where the line structure is meaningful.
• Wrapping at 80 when the content will be quoted in a reply, which pushes it over.