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Re: Word wrap


From: Peter S Galbraith
Subject: Re: Word wrap
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 12:54:38 -0500

>                                                              Every
> "word processor" that I have ever used does this automatically, but it
> seems to be completely foreign to emacs. 

Because Emacs isn't a word processor?

> This is what I need emacs to do, what I am (possibly incorrectly)
> calling "Word Wrap":
> 
> Break lines at spaces when the lines exceed the margin amount, without
> actually inserting carriage returns into the file, so that files can
> be viewed in a way that pleases most normal human beings without
> changing the file contents by inserting newline characters.

When I need to import plain ascii text into MS-Word, I want every
paragraph on a single line, else MS-Word will keep the line breaks.
Then I set a fill-column to some very high number, refill and save the
result.  But that's the _only_ case where I don't want line breaks (and
only because I have to use that proprietary software).

If I type email, I use line breaks.

If I type a document, I use LaTeX and I use line breaks (they won't show
up in the final layout).

I fail to see why you want long lines.  I think the problem comes from a
Unix versus non-Unix history.

 Unix:  We create a file and expect tools to show it exactly as we
        created it, line breaks and all.

 Non-Unix (e.g. Windows): Users type in text using some tool and save it
        to disk.  They don't care too much about the actual format of
        that file.  They expect to view the file using some other
        software and have it look good, albeit formatted differently.

Two different visions of how to do things.

Peter



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