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Often (but not always) when I open a text file using Windows Notepad, it does not recognize the line breaks.

If I open the file using Windows Wordpad, and then save it as a text file, and then open it with Notepad, the line breaks are recognized.

What causes this, and what is the easiest way to view/edit the file using Notepad?

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  • Notepad doesn't recognise carriage returns (CR), but only newlines (LF).
    – Jerry
    Mar 24, 2014 at 19:27
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    Actually Windows standard line breaks are CRLF and not just CR or LF. Mar 24, 2014 at 19:59
  • Interesting description that explains the history behind the conventions and why it causes problems.
    – Nattgew
    Mar 24, 2014 at 20:29

1 Answer 1

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This is caused by this phenomenon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newline

Notepad only understands the windows newline format, so you will have to use another program. Notepad++ is quite popular on Windows (and opensource). Notepad++ is also much better at handling large files.

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