Indent Text
World's Simplest Text Tool
Easily indent text online. Instantly add spaces, tabs, or custom characters to the beginning of every line in your browser. Fast, free, and no installation required.
What Is a Text Indent Adder?
Adds spaces, tabs, or a custom symbol to the start of each line or paragraph, shifting it right to signal a new thought, section, or list item. Set the type and length above, choose whether empty lines get indented, and toggle Multi-line to indent every line instead of just the first.
Text Indent Adder Examples
Click any example to load it into the tool above.
Discover Gravity
Indent paragraphs of text about gravity using 4 regular spaces before each paragraph, without touching empty lines.
Gravity is the force that attracts...
Every object or body has gravity...
Therefore, such celestial bodies...
Top Traditional Foods in Italy
Indent a list of Italian dishes with 2 tab characters before each line, moving the list closer to the center.
Pizza Pasta Arancini Focaccia Cheese
List of Dolphin Species
Switch to Custom indent mode and use the tilde "~" character, repeated 5 times, before each species name.
~~~~~Bottlenose Dolphin ~~~~~Amazon River Dolphin ~~~~~Ganges River Dolphin
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Which Settings Should You Use?
| Setting | Best For | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Spaces | General text indentation, matching common formatting conventions | 4 spaces before each line |
| Tabs | Code-like text or content meant to align in a monospace font | 2 tabs before each line |
| Custom character | Decorative or stylistic offsets, like bullet-style prefixes | A repeated symbol such as ~~~~~ |
| Multi-line off | Indenting only the first line of a paragraph, like a traditional paragraph indent | First line only |
| Empty Lines on | Preserving consistent indentation across blank spacing in a document | Blank lines also get the prefix |
Where This Tool Is Useful
- Formatting nested lists or outlines: indent sub-items consistently without manually spacing each line.
- Preparing text for monospace display: use Tabs mode when the output needs to align cleanly in a code block or fixed-width font.
- Styling quotes or callouts: a custom character repeated a few times can visually set a quote apart from surrounding text.
- Cleaning up formatting before further edits: combine with Text Case Converter or Justify Text when a block of text needs more than one formatting pass.
- Reordering before indenting: if your lines need sorting first, run them through Sort Text Lines before applying indentation.
FAQs
What happens if I turn off Multi-line?
Only the first line of your text gets the indent prefix. Every other line is left exactly as typed, similar to a traditional paragraph-style first-line indent.
Why aren’t my blank lines getting indented?
By default, empty lines are skipped so you don’t end up with trailing whitespace on blank lines. Turn on the Empty Lines toggle if you specifically want blank lines to carry the indent too.
Can I indent with more than one character at a time?
Custom mode uses a single character, repeated as many times as the Length setting specifies. For a multi-character prefix, set the length to match how many repeats you want.
Does this tool preserve my original line breaks?
Yes. Indenting only adds a prefix to the start of each line, it never merges, splits, or removes any line breaks in your text.
Is there a limit to how much text I can indent?
No hard limit, but very large documents may take a brief moment longer since everything runs locally in your browser.
Is my text uploaded anywhere?
No. All indenting happens locally in your browser. Nothing is sent to or stored on our servers.