---
name: "elvfmt"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "elvis-common"
version: "2.2.0-11.1"
release: "Debian 7 (Wheezy)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/elvfmt"
---

# elvfmt(1)

adjust line-length for paragraphs of text

## NAME

elvfmt - adjust line-length for paragraphs of text

## SYNOPSIS

**elvfmt** \[**-w** *width* \| **-*width***\] \[**-s**\] \[**-c**\] \[**-i** *chars*\] \[**-C**\] \[**-M**\] \[*file*\]...

## VERSION

This page describes the **Elvis 2.2\_0** version of **elvfmt**. See [**elvis**(1)](/elvis/1.md).

## DESCRIPTION

**elvfmt** is a simple text formatter. It inserts or deletes newlines, as necessary, to make all lines in a paragraph be approximately the same width. It preserves indentation and word spacing.

If you don't name any files on the command line, then **elvfmt** will read from stdin.

It is typically used from within [**vi**(1)](/vi/1.md) or [**elvis**(1)](/elvis/1.md) to adjust the line breaks in a single paragraph. To do this, move the cursor to the top of the paragraph, type "!}elvfmt", and hit \<Return\>.

## OPTIONS

- **-w** *width* or **-***width*

  Use a line width of *width* characters instead of the default of 72 characters.

- **-s**

  Don't join lines shorter than the line width to fill paragraphs.

- **-c**

  Try to be smarter about crown margins. Specifically, this tells **elvfmt** to expect the first line of each paragraph to have a different indentation than subsequent lines. If text from the first input line is wrapped onto the second output line, then **elvfmt** will scan ahead to figure out what indentation it should use for the second output line, instead of reusing the first line's indentation.

- **-i** *chars*

  Allow the indentation text to include any character from *chars*, in addition to spaces and tabs. You should quote the *chars* list to protect it from the shell.

- **-C** and **-M**

  These are shortcuts for combinations of other flags. is short for and is useful for reformatting C/C++ comments. is short for and is useful for reformatting email messages.

## SEE ALSO

[**vi**(1)](/vi/1.md), [**elvis**(1)](/elvis/1.md)

## AUTHOR

Steve Kirkendall\
 kirkenda@cs.pdx.edu