Word Wrap Tool

In short Hard-wrapping text inserts real line breaks at a column width you choose, breaking between words rather than through them. It is different from the soft wrapping a text box does, where the display wraps and the underlying text is still one long line — hard wrapping changes the text itself, so the line breaks survive being copied anywhere. The classic width is 72 or 80 characters, and the reason is historical and still in force: punched cards were 80 columns, terminals inherited it, and email and code conventions inherited it from terminals. Git commit messages are conventionally wrapped at 72 so they still fit when indented in a log. Where you need this is plain-text email, code comments, README files and anything going into a fixed-width context. Where you do not is web copy or a word processor, both of which wrap for themselves and will wrap your hard breaks a second time, producing very short ragged lines. That double-wrapping is the single most common symptom of text that was hard-wrapped and then pasted somewhere it should not have been.