(emacs)Continuation Lines


Continuation Lines
==================

   If you add too many characters to one line without breaking it with
<RET>, the line grows to occupy two (or more) lines on the screen.  On
graphical displays, Emacs indicates line wrapping with small bent
arrows in the fringes to the left and right of the window.  On
text-only terminals, Emacs displays a `\' character at the right margin
of a screen line if it is not the last in its text line.  This `\'
character says that the following screen line is not really a distinct
line in the text, just a "continuation" of a line too long to fit the
screen.  Continuation is also called "line wrapping".

   When line wrapping occurs before a character that is wider than one
column, some columns at the end of the previous screen line may be
"empty."  In this case, Emacs displays additional `\' characters in the
"empty" columns, just before the `\' character that indicates
continuation.

   Sometimes it is nice to have Emacs insert newlines automatically when
a line gets too long.  Continuation on the screen does not do that.  Use
Auto Fill mode (Note: Filling) if that's what you want.

   As an alternative to continuation, Emacs can display long lines by
"truncation".  This means that all the characters that do not fit in
the width of the screen or window do not appear at all.  They remain in
the buffer, temporarily invisible.  On terminals, `$' in the last
column informs you that the line has been truncated on the display.  On
window systems, a small straight arrow in the fringe to the right of
the window indicates a truncated line.

   Truncation instead of continuation happens whenever horizontal
scrolling is in use, and optionally in all side-by-side windows (Note:
Windows).  You can enable or disable truncation for a particular
buffer with the command `M-x toggle-truncate-lines'.

   Note: Display Custom, for additional variables that affect how
text is displayed.


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