How to use the Remove Line Breaks
- Paste the text that has unwanted line breaks into the left box.
- Choose what replaces each break: a space for normal prose, nothing, or custom text such as a comma.
- Keep Keep paragraph breaks ticked so blank lines still separate paragraphs.
- Copy the joined text from the right-hand box or download it.
Features
- Replaces line breaks with a space, nothing or any text you choose
- Keeps real paragraphs separated by blank lines
- Rejoins words hyphenated across lines, common in PDF copies
- Collapses the double spaces left behind
- Handles Windows, Mac and Unix line endings
- Turns one-per-line lists into comma-separated text
Why copied text breaks into short lines
A PDF does not store paragraphs. It stores lines of text placed at exact positions on a page, so when you copy from it, every visual line ends with a hard line break. Plain-text emails are often wrapped too: the email standard recommends keeping lines under 78 characters, and many mail programs insert breaks to stay within it. Text from terminals, subtitles and scanned documents behaves the same way. Paste any of these into a document or a web form and you get ragged lines that no longer reflow.
How paragraphs are kept
With Keep paragraph breaks on, a blank line is treated as the end of a paragraph. Single line breaks inside a paragraph are replaced; the blank lines between paragraphs are kept. If your source has no blank lines between paragraphs, as some PDFs do, the whole text becomes one paragraph. In that case, add an empty line where each paragraph should start before you paste, or switch the option off and split the result by hand.
Rejoining hyphenated words
Justified PDFs often split long words across lines with a hyphen, so copying gives “infor-” on one line and “mation” on the next. When the line ends in a hyphen between two lowercase letters, this tool removes the hyphen and the break, giving “information”. It also handles soft hyphens, which some PDFs use for the same purpose.
The rule cannot tell an end-of-line split from a genuine compound such as “well-known” that happened to break at its hyphen; that word would come out as “wellknown”. Words starting with a capital, like “Jean-Paul”, are not joined. Skim the result for compounds if your text has many of them.
Choosing a replacement
| Lines in | Replace with | Result |
|---|---|---|
| The quick brown / fox jumps | A space | The quick brown fox jumps |
| https://example.com/very-long- / path | Nothing | https://example.com/very-long-path |
| anna@site.com / ben@site.com | Custom “, ” | anna@site.com, ben@site.com |
| red / green / blue | Custom “ | ” | red | green | blue |
Use a space for ordinary prose. Choose nothing for text where lines were split mid-word, such as long links, or for Chinese and Japanese, which do not use spaces between words. Use custom text to turn a one-per-line list into a comma-separated line, for example to paste addresses into the To field of an email; Outlook prefers a semicolon. Turn Keep paragraph breaks off when you want every item on one line regardless of blank lines.
Related clean-up
Text from PDFs often has other problems too. Run it through Remove Extra Spaces to fix uneven gaps and invisible characters, or extract text from a PDF file directly with PDF to Text. To swap specific words or patterns afterwards, use Find and Replace.
Frequently asked questions
How do I remove line breaks but keep my paragraphs?
Leave “Keep paragraph breaks” ticked. Single line breaks are replaced, while blank lines between paragraphs stay, so the paragraph structure survives.
Why did my whole text turn into one paragraph?
Your source has no blank lines between paragraphs, so there is nothing to tell paragraphs apart. Insert an empty line where each paragraph begins and paste again.
How do I turn a list into comma-separated text?
Choose “Custom text”, type a comma and a space as the separator, and untick “Keep paragraph breaks” if your list has blank lines in it.
Will it fix words split with a hyphen at the end of a line?
Yes, when a lowercase letter, a hyphen and a line break are followed by another lowercase letter. Genuine compound words split at their hyphen will also be joined, so check those.
Does it work with Windows line endings?
Yes. Windows (CRLF), classic Mac (CR) and Unix (LF) line endings are all recognized.