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I have a very long line of text (8000 characters). I would like to format this nicely so it splits across multiple lines in a block. Where the line breaks occurs does not matter for this purpose.

before:

aaaaaaaabbbbbbbbccccccccdddddddd

after:

aaaaaaaa bbbbbbbb cccccccc dddddddd

I chose eight characters before a line-break, but that number does not matter either- it could be 8 or 80. fill-paragraph does not seem to work for me- nothing happens.

N.B. I'm not asking about Line Wrapping, or how the text is displayed.

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  • @Drew I must disagree. This has nothing todo with keyboard macros. (replace-regexp "\\(.\\{8\\}\\)" "\\1\n") will also do. (Naturally I would use the equivalent interactive command.) Commented May 11, 2018 at 14:37
  • fill-paragraph does not work here because it breaks lines at whitespace. Commented May 11, 2018 at 15:05
  • @Tobias: The question does not ask about keyboard macros, true. But someone looking at questions tagged keyboard-macros might well be helped by this question. Feel free to remove the tag, if you feel that tag text-editing is enough or you have a more helpful tag in mind. Commented May 11, 2018 at 16:59

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You can use a keyboard macro. Generally using a keyboard macro means to record some steps for later reuse. (Find documentation about keyboard macros within Emacs by entering C-h F kmacro-start-macro-or-insert-counter <RET>.)

Recent versions of Emacs provide the function key <F3> to start a recording of a keyboard macro and <F4> to finalize the recording and also replay the last recording (if not currently recording.)

To solve you question using a keyboard macro perform the following steps.

  1. Move the cursor to the beginning of the line with the 8000 characters.

  2. Press <F3> (to start macro recording.)

  3. Perform the action. In this case e.g. move forward eight characters (press the left arrow key eight times) and press the enter key.

  4. Press <F4> (to finalize the macro recording. The macro then is recorded.)

  5. Type M-999 <F4>. Concretely this (typically) means: hold down the Alt key, press the 9-key three times, release the Alt key, press <F4>. Explanation: This plays the macro 999 times. Recall that <F4> replays the previously recorded macro. One can further specify a number how often the macro will be replayed (see the Emacs documentation for "Arguments"). The M-999 stands for 999 repetitions.

  6. Be patient while the macro performs.

  7. See the result of the transformation!

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    Please be more verbose. What does F3 and F4 do? Maybe somebody has re-mapped the keys. For an example consider users of ergomacs where F3 is suggested for re-mapping by the user. What does C-u 8 do? What does C-f do? Commented May 11, 2018 at 15:01
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    What @Tobias said - that will help (e.g. show also the command name). But what is meant here are the default bindings of F3 and F4. It's a judgment call whether someone should always spell out the default command bound to a key (e.g. C-x C-f). Commented May 11, 2018 at 17:02
  • @Marco Wahl, This did work. I must admit I didn't think of a macro, because I was hoping for a 'single command' to do what I wanted. Thanks for the help. Commented May 15, 2018 at 15:33

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