623

I want to insert a new line (like \r\n, <br />) in a Text component in React Native.

If I have:

<text>
<br />
Hi~<br />
this is a test message.<br />
</text>

Then React Native renders Hi~ this is a test message.

Is it possible render text to add a new line like so:

Hi~
this is a test message.
Angshu31
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Curtis
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39 Answers39

1056

This should do it:

<Text>
Hi~{"\n"}
this is a test message.
</Text>
Matt McDonald
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Chris Ghenea
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    Is there a way to do it with string from variable so I could use: `{content}` ? – Roman Sklenar Mar 29 '16 at 14:17
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    \n is a line break – Chris Ghenea Mar 30 '16 at 15:45
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    Thanks for this. I ended up making a line break component for quick access `var Br = React.createClass({ render() { return ( {"\n"}{"\n"} ) } })` – Jonathan Lockley Jul 15 '16 at 11:09
  • This ended up line breaking my entire screen (all components on the same level). :S – Magne Mar 08 '18 at 14:26
  • Isn't there any tag like
    ? What if we want to give a line break b/w two tags?
    – Pratik Singhal Apr 09 '18 at 14:11
  • is there anything to do linebreak based on text no count ? – Anuj Aug 24 '18 at 09:24
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    What if the text is in a string variable? `{comments}` We cannot use the `{\n}` logic there. Then how? – user2078023 Jan 14 '19 at 15:30
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    If the text comes from a prop, make sure you pass it like this: `` instead of `` (notice the added curly braces) – qwertzguy Feb 15 '20 at 21:38
  • Using variable inside `{content}` with newline character will work normally. If that's not working it is due to `\\n` as newline character is escaped with the extra \. In that case use `{content.replace(/[^\]\\n/g, '\n')}`. – Shreyak Upadhyay Jul 27 '20 at 20:47
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    None of the suggestions on this page worked for me. But I found something that worked elsewhere: https://forum.freecodecamp.org/t/newline-in-react-string-solved/68484 (basically inserting a symbol ('\n', for example) in the string and then in the rendering component splitting the string at each symbol and mapping the substrings) – mehrlicht May 29 '21 at 10:32
  • This worked for me: {"\n"} inside tag Text – Diego Santa Cruz Mendezú Jan 31 '22 at 01:31
  • If you need to pass components inside the text, such as icons, you can do the following: Some text then an icon then a line-break{"\n"}Then the end text.>}. Note the <>>, which can also be replaced with other components that can go inside a component. – John Jul 18 '22 at 00:11
175

You can also do:

<Text>{`
Hi~
this is a test message.
`}</Text>

Easier in my opinion, because you don't have to insert stuff within the string; just wrap it once and it keeps all your line-breaks.

Venryx
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    this is cleanest solution so far, together with `white-space: pre-line;` – Tomasz Mularczyk May 19 '17 at 17:43
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    @Tomasz: I think there is no white-space or whiteSpace: -Stylesheet for -Tag in react-native - or am I wrong? – suther Aug 03 '17 at 10:01
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    Template literals are clean and neat compare to accepted answer – Hemadri Dasari Oct 10 '18 at 16:25
  • I guess the white-space style is supposed to remove intendation spaces, right? If yes, I desperately need it, otherwise string literals get super ugly... – xeruf Oct 24 '18 at 14:51
  • @Xerus You can just use a text post-processor to remove the indentation, as seen here: https://gist.github.com/Venryx/84cce3413b1f7ae75b3140dd128f944c – Venryx Sep 05 '19 at 18:33
  • Great for bodies of text. You can't style individual words though. – RockyK Nov 20 '19 at 06:29
  • this is cleanest solution so far, but it needs `white-space: pre-wrap;`, not `white-space: pre-line;`, in order to keep indentation correct. – Vincent Lecrubier Jun 30 '21 at 19:43
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    agree, style of "white-space: pre-line" is the most clean solution, it works, and that's actually how html works. – scotty Mar 04 '22 at 07:19
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    I agree that this is the cleanest solution but it does not work on React Native which is what the question is asking. There is not a direct replacement for `white-space` on native and it doesn't work in all the cases. – marcelaconejo May 02 '22 at 23:21
75

Use:

<Text>{`Hi,\nCurtis!`}</Text>

Result:

Hi,

Curtis!

ata
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COdek
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56

Solution 1:

<Text>
  line 1{"\n"}
  line 2
</Text>

Solution 2:

 <Text>{`
  line 1
  line 2
 `}</Text>

Solution 3:

Here was my solution of handling multiple <br/> tags:

<Text style={{ whiteSpace: "pre-line" }}>
    {"Hi<br/> this is a test message.".split("<br/>").join("\n")}
</Text>

Solution 4:

use maxWidth for auto line break

<Text style={{ maxWidth:200}}>this is a test message. this is a test message</Text>
TOPKAT
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Muhammad Numan
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    my up vote is for `white-space: pre-line` in solution 3 which allows you pass in a variable with `\n` style breaks and get them rendered – Grant Humphries Sep 28 '22 at 03:48
24

This worked for me

<Text>{`Hi~\nthis is a test message.`}</Text>

(react-native 0.41.0)

Olivier
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23

If at all you are displaying data from state variables, use this.

<Text>{this.state.user.bio.replace('<br/>', '\n')}</Text>
Edison D'souza
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21

You can use {'\n'} as line breaks. Hi~ {'\n'} this is a test message.

Saqib Omer
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12

EDIT :

if you use Template Literals (see within the <Text> element) , you can also just add the line breaks like this:

import React, { Component } from 'react';
import { Text, View } from "react-native";

export default class extends Component {

 (...)

 render(){
  return (
    <View>
      <Text>{`
        1. line 1
        2. line 2
        3. line 3
      `}</Text>
    </View>
  );
 }
}
Telmo Dias
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    This has nothing to do with styled-components and will work no matter if you use them or not. – Kuba Jagoda May 18 '20 at 22:55
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    I think the comment above is saying that `styled-components` isn't what is providing the line-break, so there's no reason to use or mention it as the solution. It's the template literal that's providing the line break. Also, suggesting to install a new package to solve a simple problem is not necessary. – M - Nov 02 '21 at 17:35
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    This answer suggests adding `styled-components` but it's actually the template literal that provides the break, therefore `styled-components` does not participate in the solution at all. I should have made this more clear in my comment, sorry. Anyway it's hard to find a "constructive way to improve the answer" if it misses the point. If you're still looking for one though, then it would say something about removing `styled-components` from it leaving only template string literal, which are actually the solution (one of possible). – Kuba Jagoda Nov 03 '21 at 08:41
  • Thank you for the cooperation, what I meant was not that I don't know how to update the answer, but that instead of writing comments like that does not really help anyone, and if one thing stackoverflow teaches us is that cooperation makes wonders, therefore it's really appreciated if everybody replies in a constructive way. But honestly thanks for your contributions. – Telmo Dias Nov 03 '21 at 09:09
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    This suggestion helped to solve my case! Bravo – Code Cooker Apr 14 '23 at 03:28
12

https://stackoverflow.com/a/44845810/10480776 @Edison D'souza's answer was exactly what I was looking for. However, it was only replacing the first occurrence of the string. Here was my solution to handling multiple <br/> tags:

<Typography style={{ whiteSpace: "pre-line" }}>
    {shortDescription.split("<br/>").join("\n")}
</Typography>

Sorry, I couldn't comment on his post due to the reputation score limitation.

  • This solution worked for me! Inside of the Typography I had this: `{"${t('RateOptions.Details', { defaultValue: 'Rate info' })}".split('
    ').join('\n')}` Note the double quotes are supposed to be backticks
    – Greesemonkey3 Apr 27 '22 at 16:46
7

I needed a one-line solution branching in a ternary operator to keep my code nicely indented.

{foo ? `First line of text\nSecond line of text` : `Single line of text`}

Sublime syntax highlighting helps highlight the line-break character:

Sublime syntax highlight

Beau Smith
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7

Use {"\n"} where you want the line break

taylorSeries
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M.Hassam Yahya
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6

this is a nice question , you can do this in multiple ways First

<View>
    <Text>
        Hi this is first line  {\n}  hi this is second line 
    </Text>
</View>

which means you can use {\n} backslash n to break the line

Second

<View>
     <Text>
         Hi this is first line
     </Text>
     <View>
         <Text>
             hi this is second line 
         </Text>
     </View>
</View>

which means you can use another <View> component inside first <View> and wrap it around <Text> component

Happy Coding

Chandan
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Shahmeer Khan
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5

You can try using like this

<text>{`${val}\n`}</text>
Pankaj Agarwal
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3

You can use `` like this:

<Text>{`Hi~
this is a test message.`}</Text>
Idan
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3

You can do it as follows:

{'Create\nYour Account'}

Himanshu Ahuja
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3

You can also just add it as a constant in your render method so its easy to reuse:

  render() {
    const br = `\n`;
     return (
        <Text>Capital Street{br}Cambridge{br}CB11 5XE{br}United Kingdom</Text>
     )  
  }
Tim J
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3

Just put {'\n'} within the Text tag

<Text>

   Hello {'\n'}

   World!

</Text>
Chris McGrath
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Curious96
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3

One of the cleanest and most flexible way would be using Template Literals.

An advantage of using this is, if you want to display the content of string variable in the text body, it is cleaner and straight forward.

(Please note the usage of backtick characters)

const customMessage = 'This is a test message';
<Text>
{`
  Hi~
  ${customMessage}
`}
</Text>

Would result in

Hi~
This is a test message
3

Here is a solution for React (not React Native) using TypeScript.

The same concept can be applied to React Native

import React from 'react';

type Props = {
  children: string;
  Wrapper?: any;
}

/**
 * Automatically break lines for text
 *
 * Avoids relying on <br /> for every line break
 *
 * @example
 * <Text>
 *   {`
 *     First line
 *
 *     Another line, which will respect line break
 *  `}
 * </Text>
 * @param props
 */
export const Text: React.FunctionComponent<Props> = (props) => {
  const { children, Wrapper = 'div' } = props;

  return (
    <Wrapper style={{ whiteSpace: 'pre-line' }}>
      {children}
    </Wrapper>
  );
};

export default Text;

Usage:

<Text>
  {`
    This page uses server side rendering (SSR)

    Each page refresh (either SSR or CSR) queries the GraphQL API and displays products below:
  `}
</Text>

Displays: enter image description here

Vadorequest
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3

Simple use backticks (ES 6 feature)

SOLUTION 1

const Message = 'This is a message';

<Text>
{`
  Hi~
  ${Message}
`}
</Text>

SOLUTION 2 Add "\n" in Text

<Text>
Hi~{"\n"}
This is a message.
</Text>
3

I know this is quite old but I came up with a solution for automatically breaking lines which allows you to pass in the text in the usual way (no trickery)

I created the following component

import React, {} from "react";
import {Text} from "react-native";

function MultiLineText({children,  ...otherProps}) {

const splits = children.split("\\n")
console.log(splits);
const items = []
for (let s of splits){
  items.push(s)
  items.push("\n")
}

  return (
    <Text {...otherProps}>{items}</Text>
  );
}


export default MultiLineText;

Then you can just use it like so..

<MultiLineText style={styles.text}>This is the first line\nThis is teh second line</MultiLineText>
Charlie Morton
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3

There are two main solutions for this.

Method 1: Just add the '\n' like below

<Text>
   First Line {'\n'} Second Line.
</Text>

Method 2: Add the line break it in the string literals, like below.

 <Text>
   `First Line  
   Second Line`.
 </Text>

For more information, please refer the below tutorial.

https://sourcefreeze.com/how-to-insert-a-line-break-into-a-text-component-in-react-native/

Bharathi Devarasu
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3

Y'all can try this if trying to use a variable inside an element.

<Text>{newText}</Text>

const newText= text.body.split("\n").map((item, key) => {
    return (
      <span key={key}>
        {item}
        <br />
      </span>
    );
  });
belards
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2

do this:

<Text>

 { "Hi~ \n this is a test message." }

<Text/>
Mahdi Eslami
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2

If you're getting your data from a state variable or props, the Text component has a style prop with minWidth, maxWidth.

example

const {height,width} = Dimensions.get('screen');

const string = `This is the description coming from the state variable, It may long thank this` 

<Text style={{ maxWidth:width/2}}>{string}</Text>

This will display text 50% width of your screen

1

Another way to insert <br> between text lines that are defined in an array:

import react, { Fragment } from 'react';

const lines = [
  'One line',
  'Another line',
];

const textContent =
  lines.reduce(items, line, index) => {
    if (index > 0) {
      items.push(<br key={'br-'+index}/>);
    }
    items.push(<Fragment key={'item-'+index}>{line}</Fragment>);
    return items;
  }, []);

Then the text can be used as variable:

<Text>{textContent}</Text>

If not available, Fragment can be defined this way:

const Fragment = (props) => props.children;
Max Oriola
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1

This code works on my environment. (react-native 0.63.4)

const charChangeLine = `
`
// const charChangeLine = "\n" // or it is ok

const textWithChangeLine = "abc\ndef"

<Text>{textWithChangeLine.replace('¥n', charChangeLine)}</Text>

Result

abc
def
asukiaaa
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0

Use \n in text and css white-space: pre-wrap;

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    I don’t see `whiteSpace` listed as a React Native [Text Style Prop](https://facebook.github.io/react-native/docs/text-style-props#texttransform). Note that this isn’t HTML. – binki Sep 03 '18 at 00:56
  • for reference this works in react js. Others for some reason not working for me. – HimanshuArora9419 Apr 07 '20 at 07:45
0

In case anyone is looking for a solution where you want to have a new line for each string in an array you could do something like this:

import * as React from 'react';
import { Text, View} from 'react-native';


export default class App extends React.Component {
  constructor(props) {
    super(props);

    this.state = {
      description: ['Line 1', 'Line 2', 'Line 3'],
    };
  }

  render() {
    // Separate each string with a new line
    let description = this.state.description.join('\n\n');

    let descriptionElement = (
      <Text>{description}</Text>
    );

    return (
      <View style={{marginTop: 50}}>
        {descriptionElement}
      </View>
    );
  }
}

See snack for a live example: https://snack.expo.io/@cmacdonnacha/react-native-new-break-line-example

Cathal Mac Donnacha
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0

sometimes I write like this:

<Text>
  You have {" "}
  {remaining}$ {" "}
  from{" "}
  {total}$
<Text>

(as it looks more clear for myself)

mrxrinc
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0

Best way use list like UL or OL and do some styling like make list style none and you can use <li> dhdhdhhd </li>

lodey
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0

An empty View does the trick

<Text> some text </Text>
<View />
<Text> another line </Text>
pwellner
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-1

Why work so hard? it's 2020, create a component to handle this type of issues

    export class AppTextMultiLine extends React.PureComponent {
    render() {
    const textArray = this.props.value.split('\n');
return (
        <View>
            {textArray.map((value) => {
               return <AppText>{value}</AppText>;
            })}
        </View>
    )
}}
-1

React won't like you putting HTML <br /> in where it's expecting text, and \ns aren't always rendered unless in a <pre> tag.

Perhaps wrap each line-breaked string (paragraph) in a <p> tag like this:

{text.split("\n").map((line, idx) => <p key={idx}>{line}</p>)}

Don't forget the key if you're iterating React components.

errkk
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-2
<Text>
Hi~{"\n"}
this is a test message.
</Text>
-2

I used p Tag for new line. so here i pasted code .that will helpfu for anyone.

const new2DArr =  associativeArr.map((crntVal )=>{
          return <p > Id :  {crntVal.id} City Name : {crntVal.cityName} </p>;
     });
pankaj
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-2

2021, this works for a REACT state Value (you have to add empty divs, just like a return statement)

this.setState({form: (<> line 1 <br /> line 2 </>) })

Rishi Bhachu
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-2

This should do the trick !

<Text style={{styles.text}}>{`Hi~\nthis is a test message.`}</Text>
Muhammad Humza
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-3

Hey just put them like this it works for me !

   <div>
       <p style={{ fontWeight: "bold", whitespace: "pre-wrap" }}>
         {" "}
         Hello {"\n"}
       </p>
         {"\n"}
       <p>I am here</p>
   </div>
Farbod Aprin
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