What happens to a single word longer than the max width?

It's kept intact on its own line rather than being broken mid-word, since the tool only ever breaks at whitespace between words, so that one line may still exceed the target width.

Does it preserve existing line breaks?

Each original line is wrapped independently, so an existing blank line stays a blank line and a paragraph break is preserved, but a single long line is reflowed into several new lines.

Can I use this to prep text for a fixed-width terminal?

Yes, that's a common use: set the max width to your terminal's column count so plain text displays cleanly without soft-wrapping mid-word.

Word Wrapper Online - Wrap Text to a Max Width

Overview

Introduction

Plain text destined for a fixed-width terminal, a monospace email, or printed output often needs hard line breaks at a specific column, not just visual soft-wrapping in an editor.

Manually inserting those breaks at the right word boundary across a long paragraph is slow and easy to get wrong.

What Is Word Wrapper?

A word wrapper that reflows text so no line exceeds a chosen maximum width, breaking only between words so no word is ever split mid-character.

It runs entirely client-side as part of this site's String Tools collection, so nothing you paste is ever uploaded to a server.

How Word Wrapper Works

For each original line, the tool splits the text into words and greedily builds up new lines, adding a word to the current line whenever it still fits within the max width, and starting a fresh line otherwise.

The transformation happens synchronously in JavaScript the moment you type, with no network round trip involved.

When To Use Word Wrapper

Use it to prepare plain text for a fixed-width terminal, format a monospace email or commit message body, or reflow a paragraph after editing.

It's a fast way to get the answer without opening a code editor, a REPL, or writing a one-off script just to check.

Often used alongside Text Justifier, Left Aligner and Line Break Adder.

Features

Advantages

Never breaks a word mid-character, keeping words intact.
Processes each existing line independently so paragraph breaks are preserved.

Limitations

A single word longer than the max width isn't broken, so it can still exceed the target line length.

Examples

Wrapping to width 15

Input

the quick brown fox jumps

Output

the quick brown
fox jumps

With maxWidth=15, words are added to the current line until the next word wouldn't fit, then a new line starts.

Best Practices & Notes

Best Practices

Set the max width a few characters below your target column count to leave room for any prefix you add afterward, like a quote marker or indent.

Developer Notes

The greedy wrap checks `current.length + 1 + word.length <= maxWidth` before appending a word (the `+ 1` accounts for the joining space), and each original line is processed independently via `input.split("\n")` so blank lines and paragraph breaks survive the transformation.

Word Wrapper Use Cases

Formatting plain text for a fixed-width terminal display
Reflowing a paragraph to a specific column width for a text file
Preparing a commit message body wrapped to the conventional 72-character width

Common Mistakes

Expecting an overly long single word to be broken automatically; it's kept whole on its own line instead.

Tips

Wrap to 72 characters for git commit message bodies, a widely used convention for readable diffs and terminal output.

Word Wrapper