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textwrap Library

The textwrap library provides text wrapping and filling utilities, compatible with Python’s textwrap module.

Import

import textwrap

Available Functions

Function Description
wrap(text, width=70) Wrap text into list of lines
fill(text, width=70) Wrap text and join with newlines
dedent(text) Remove common leading whitespace
indent(text, prefix) Add prefix to each line
shorten(text, width) Truncate text to width with placeholder

Functions

wrap(text, width=70)

Wrap a single paragraph of text, returning a list of wrapped lines.

Parameters:

  • text - The text to wrap
  • width - Maximum line width (default: 70)

Returns: List of lines

import textwrap

text = "This is a long line of text that needs to be wrapped"
lines = textwrap.wrap(text, 20)
# ["This is a long line", "of text that needs", "to be wrapped"]

fill(text, width=70)

Wrap text and return a single string with lines joined by newlines.

Parameters:

  • text - The text to wrap
  • width - Maximum line width (default: 70)

Returns: Wrapped text as a single string

import textwrap

text = "This is a long line of text that needs to be wrapped"
result = textwrap.fill(text, 20)
# "This is a long line\nof text that needs\nto be wrapped"

dedent(text)

Remove common leading whitespace from all lines in text.

Parameters:

  • text - The text to dedent

Returns: Dedented text

import textwrap

text = "    Hello\n    World\n    Test"
result = textwrap.dedent(text)
# "Hello\nWorld\nTest"

indent(text, prefix)

Add a prefix to the beginning of non-empty lines in text.

Parameters:

  • text - The text to indent
  • prefix - String to add to each line

Returns: Indented text

import textwrap

text = "Hello\nWorld"
result = textwrap.indent(text, "  ")
# "  Hello\n  World"

# Quote style
result = textwrap.indent(text, "> ")
# "> Hello\n> World"

shorten(text, width, placeholder="[…]")

Truncate text to fit in the given width, using a placeholder.

Parameters:

  • text - The text to shorten
  • width - Maximum width including placeholder
  • placeholder - String to indicate truncation (default: “[…]”)

Returns: Shortened text

import textwrap

text = "Hello World, this is a very long line of text"
result = textwrap.shorten(text, 20)
# "Hello World,[...]"

# Custom placeholder
result = textwrap.shorten(text, 20, placeholder="...")
# "Hello World,..."

Examples

Formatting Long Text

import textwrap

article = "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua."

# Wrap to 40 characters
wrapped = textwrap.fill(article, 40)
print(wrapped)

Creating Indented Blocks

import textwrap

code = "x = 1\ny = 2\nresult = x + y"
indented = textwrap.indent(code, "    ")
# "    x = 1\n    y = 2\n    result = x + y"

Processing Multi-line Strings

import textwrap

# Remove common indentation
template = """
    This text has
    common indentation
    that we want to remove
"""
clean = textwrap.dedent(template)

Truncating for Display

import textwrap

titles = [
    "A Short Title",
    "A Very Long Title That Needs To Be Truncated For Display"
]

for title in titles:
    display = textwrap.shorten(title, 30)
    print(display)

Notes

  • wrap() and fill() collapse whitespace and break at word boundaries
  • dedent() only removes common leading whitespace (spaces/tabs that appear at the start of every line)
  • indent() does not add prefix to empty lines by default
  • shorten() attempts to break at word boundaries when truncating

Python Compatibility

This library implements a subset of Python’s textwrap module:

Function Supported
wrap ✅
fill ✅
dedent ✅
indent ✅
shorten ✅
TextWrapper class ❌