Remove Line Breaks – Join Lines, Keep Paragraphs

All 8 kinds of line break

Everyday line ends 3

Carriage return (CR) U+000D. Alone, it was the line end of Mac OS 9 and earlier and of several 1980s home computers. Today it is mostly met as the first half of CR LF. Code writes it as \r. Line break class CR.
Carriage return and line feed (CR LF) U+000D U+000A. Two characters that count as one break. The line end on Windows, and the one that email and most text-based internet protocols require. A tool that removes only LF leaves a stray CR in every line.
Line feed (LF) U+000A. The line end on Unix, Linux and current macOS. Code writes it as \n. Line break class LF.

Show all 8 kinds of line break (5 more)

Rare and hidden breaks 5

Form feed (FF) U+000C. Often a page separator in plain text. The Unicode Standard says it does not interrupt a paragraph, so it is removed as a line break and never kept as a paragraph break. Line break class BK.
Line separator (LS) U+2028. Unicode's own line break, made so that a new line could be stored without the CR and LF muddle. Much software ignores it, but JavaScript counts it as the end of a line, so it can split text that looks whole. Line break class BK.
Line tabulation (VT) U+000B. Better known as vertical tab. The Unicode Standard notes that one widely used word processor stores a line break inside a paragraph as this character, so it arrives in text pasted from documents. Line break class BK.
Next line (NEL) U+0085. The line end of EBCDIC mainframe text once it is converted to Unicode. Much software does not treat it as a line break at all, which is how it slips through other cleaners. Line break class NL.
Paragraph separator (PS) U+2029. Unicode's own paragraph break, and the only one of the eight that means a new paragraph by itself. With Keep paragraphs on it becomes a blank line and stays. Line break class BK.

How this list was compiled: The eight entries are the eight newline functions in Table 5-1 of the Unicode Standard, version 18.0.0, section 5.8, Newline Guidelines (https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode18.0.0/core-spec/chapter-5/): CR, LF, CRLF, NEL, VT, FF, LS and PS. The platform notes follow Table 5-2 of the same section, and the list of systems in the Wikipedia article on the newline (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newline), which also records that most text-based internet protocols require CR LF and that JavaScript treats LS and PS as line ends. Every entry was checked against three files of the Unicode Character Database, version 18.0.0: the control code names and abbreviations in https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/NameAliases.txt, the names and categories in https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/UnicodeData.txt, and the line break classes in https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/LineBreak.txt. Unicode Standard Annex 14, revision 57 (https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr14/), gives the classes BK, CR, LF and NL a mandatory break and says that only the paragraph separator defines a paragraph break. The samples are the Control Pictures U+240A to U+240D. NEL, LS and PS have no picture of their own, so they borrow U+2424 (symbol for newline), U+21B5 (an arrow that NamesList.txt says may indicate a new line) and U+00B6 (the paragraph sign). Everything was checked on 2026-09-19. Characters that only allow a line to wrap, such as the soft hyphen and the zero width space, are not line breaks and are not in the list. Licence: own work

How it works

This line break remover joins text that breaks in the wrong places. It can remove new lines yet keep paragraph breaks, or turn multiline text into a single line. It finds all 8 kinds of line break that Unicode defines.

Read the full guide

Remove line breaks from text, keep the paragraphs

Paste your text and it replaces the sample. Each single break inside a paragraph becomes a space, so no two words run together. A blank line stays one blank line, so the paragraphs survive.

Remove all line breaks: text to one line

To remove paragraph breaks as well, switch Keep paragraphs off and the whole text becomes a single line. For a column of names, replace each break with a comma and a space.

A poem or a postal address needs its breaks. For an address on one line, use a comma and a space.
A plain text email line break often falls every 78 characters or sooner, the line length the mail standard recommends.
A word hyphenated at a line end stays split, as nor- mal does above, until Rejoin hyphenated words is on.

Questions and answers

What are line breaks?

A line break is an invisible character that ends one line of text and starts the next. Code writes the everyday one, the line feed, as \n and the carriage return as \r. Linebreak and newline are other names for it.

What is the difference between a line break and a paragraph break?

A line break starts a new line inside the same paragraph, as in a poem. A paragraph break ends the paragraph: in plain text, usually a double line break that leaves a blank line. The sample has four line breaks and one paragraph break.

What are hard and soft line breaks?

A soft line break is where an app wraps a line at the edge of the window. Nothing is stored, so there is nothing to remove. A hard line break is a real character in the text, the kind this page takes out.

What are the line break characters?

The Unicode Standard lists eight newline functions: Line feed, Carriage return, the two together, Next line, Line tabulation, Form feed, Line separator and Paragraph separator. The first three are the everyday ones, and the other five are what simple cleaners miss.

Why remove carriage returns as well as line feeds?

Because one break can be two characters. A teleprinter’s carriage return sent the print head back to the first column and its line feed rolled the paper up. Windows kept both, so removing only the line feed strands a return in every line.