Mathematica Tutorial

Newlines and Tabs in Strings

\n	a newline (line feed) to be included in a string
\t	a tab to be included in a string

Explicit representations of newlines and tabs in strings.

This prints on two lines.

In[1]:=

Out[1]=

In InputForm there is an explicit \n to represent the newline.

In[2]:=

Out[2]//InputForm=

Mathematica keeps line breaks entered within a string.

In[3]:=

Out[3]=

There is a newline in the string.

In[4]:=

Out[4]//InputForm=

With a single backslash at the end of a line, Mathematica ignores the line break.

In[5]:=

Out[5]=

You should realize that even though it is possible to achieve some formatting of Mathematica output by creating strings which contain raw tabs and newlines, this is rarely a good idea. Typically a much better approach is to use the higher-level Mathematica formatting primitives discussed in "String-Oriented Output Formats", "Output Formats for Numbers", and "Tables and Matrices". These primitives will always yield consistent output, independent of such issues as the positions of tab settings on a particular device.

In strings with newlines, text is always aligned on the left.

In[6]:=

Out[6]=

The front end formatting construct Column gives more control. Here text is aligned on the right.

In[7]:=

Out[7]=

And here the text is centered.

In[8]:=

Out[8]=