Word wrap refers to the process of automatically wrapping long lines of text within a document so they appear neatly on the screen without requiring horizontal scrolling.
In a text editor, word wrap is often used to indent each line of a paragraph so it’s easier to read. It can also be helpful when writing long lines of text, as it prevents the text from being cut off at the edge of the screen.
Word Wrap can help:
- Increase the readability of long lines.
- Prevent text from being cut off at the edge of the screen.
- Make it easier to maintain basic formattings like indentation and line spacing.
- Improves consistency in documents with multiple authors (e.g., open-source wikis) by “enforcing” a standard layout style, even when users employ different third-party tools or stylesheets that don’t support word wrap.
In conclusion, word wrap is a word processing function that restricts all text to particular margins. When a line of text is completely filled, the word processor automatically moves it to the next line, so the user doesn’t have to press the return key after each line. If the document’s margins are altered, the text will also wrap.