About Line Break Converter

Normalize CRLF / LF / CR line endings across an entire file. Part of the DevTools Surf developer suite. Browse more tools in the Text / String collection.

Use Cases

• DevOps engineers fixing shell scripts that break on Windows line endings
• Cross-platform teams normalizing line endings before committing to Git
• Data engineers cleaning CSV files exported from mixed operating systems
• Web developers ensuring consistent line breaks in deployment config files

Tips

• Detect whether your file uses CRLF, LF, or CR before converting
• Convert Windows CRLF to Unix LF for shell scripts that fail on \r
• Normalize mixed line endings that cause git diff noise

Fun Facts

• CRLF (\r\n) dates back to mechanical teletypes: CR moved the print head to column 1, and LF advanced the paper one line — two separate physical operations.
• Git's core.autocrlf setting was created because Windows uses CRLF while Unix/macOS uses LF, causing thousands of phantom diffs in cross-platform repositories.
• Classic Mac OS (pre-2001) used CR (\r) alone as its line ending — when Apple switched to macOS (Unix-based), they adopted LF, making CR-only files a relic.

FAQ

Why does my file have mixed line endings?

Usually because it was edited across operating systems. Windows writes CRLF, macOS and Linux write LF. Git can auto-convert but sometimes misses files.

Which line ending should I standardize on?

LF for everything except Windows-only batch files. All modern tooling (Git, Node, Python, editors) handles LF natively on any OS.

Does it handle CR-only (classic Mac)?

Yes — CR-only line endings from pre-OSX Macs or some old tools are detected and converted. Rare in practice but the tool supports it.

Will it preserve trailing newlines?

Yes. Text files should end with a newline per POSIX. The tool preserves or adds one based on your 'ensure trailing newline' toggle.