What it does
Merge Lines takes a list — one item or one wrapped line per row — and changes how the rows relate to each other. In join mode it inserts a separator between lines and produces a single block or a set of paragraphs. In column mode it wraps the list into rows of N items, with a gap that can be pasted into a spreadsheet.
The input is never rewritten word by word. The tool decides where the separators go, whether blank lines count as paragraph boundaries, and whether a hyphen at the end of a line should be removed. Those are structural choices, and they are easier to get right when they are separate controls rather than a single “clean up” button.
Join or columns
Join into text is the mode for prose. Choose a space, comma, semicolon, pipe, or custom separator. With “keep blank-line paragraph breaks” on, a blank line becomes a paragraph boundary and the lines around it are joined within their own paragraph. With it off, every line is joined into one block.
Arrange in columns is the mode for lists. Two columns turn ten items into five rows; a tab gap produces a table-like layout that survives a paste into Excel or Google Sheets. The order is read down each list and then across, so the first item stays first. The last row can be padded so every column exists, which keeps a spreadsheet’s column count stable.
The two modes share the same input. Switching modes does not lose the list, so you can try a paragraph join, decide it reads badly, and switch to columns without pasting again.
Repairing words split with a hyphen
A line-wrapped word often arrives as “trans-” at the end of one line and “form” at the start of the next. Joining with a space would produce “trans- form”; joining with nothing would produce “transform” but would also smash together words that legitimately ended with a hyphen. The dehyphenate option is conservative: it removes the hyphen and the line break together, rather than turning the hyphen into a space.
It is a repair for prose, not a grammar checker. A compound such as “well-known” at the end of a line may lose its hyphen if the next line continues the sentence. Read the result, or leave the option off and fix the few cases by hand.
Examples
Before
The report is due on Friday.
We need three copies before
the client meeting.
Please send them to the
front desk.After
The report is due on Friday. We need three copies before the client meeting.
Please send them to the front desk.The blank line survives as a paragraph break. The line breaks inside each paragraph become spaces. If the original had no blank line between the two paragraphs, the tool cannot guess where the boundary was; turn the option off and join everything, or add the blank line in the input.
Before
Northwind Analytics
Bright Harbor Coffee
Cedar & Co.
Meridian Health
Juniper Works
Atlas OutdoorAfter
Northwind Analytics Bright Harbor Coffee
Cedar & Co. Meridian Health
Juniper Works Atlas OutdoorThe tab characters are invisible in this preview but become column separators when the text is pasted into a spreadsheet. If the destination expects commas, choose the comma gap instead.
Before
The trans-
form is complete.After
The transform is complete.The hyphen and the break are removed together. A space-only join would have left “trans- form” with a visible hyphen and an awkward gap.
Limits worth knowing
- Joining is not the same as rewriting. The tool does not add punctuation, fix capitalization, or remove a stray comma at the end of a line. Those are editing jobs.
- Paragraph detection depends on blank lines. If the source has no blank lines, there is nothing to detect. The tool will not infer paragraph boundaries from sentence length or indentation.
- Column layout is plain text. It is not an HTML table, a spreadsheet file, or a fixed-width layout that will survive a proportional font. Use tabs for spreadsheets and pipes for Markdown tables.
- Dehyphenation can be wrong. A legitimate hyphen at a line end may be removed. Review the output, especially in technical text where hyphens carry meaning.
- Nothing is stored. A refresh clears the input and settings. Copy or download the result before leaving.
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