Remove Line Breaks with Javascript

Updated: March 23, 2020

This hot tip is all about using plain JavaScript code to remove line breaks from a string.

In order to remove line breaks, we have to take into consideration three different types of line breaks, depending on the three operating system: (\r\n) for Windows, (\n) for Linux and (\r) for macOS.

Let's first define the string variable with some Hipster Ipsum text that we need to format:

const randomString =
  "Kinfolk tumeric hell of meggings.\n Man braid leggings thundercats, glossier palo santo farm-to-table letterpress kale chips gastropub chartreuse selfies stumptown 8-bit small batch.\r Paleo letterpress la croix DIY poke. Echo park next level hoodie hella. Semiotics taxidermy hexagon banjo chillwave subway tile portland crucifix kogi squid pabst mixtape single-origin coffee.\r\n Cliche kinfolk air plant, echo park mixtape franzen 8-bit affogato messenger bag vape jean shorts yuccie beard. Food truck copper mug coloring book portland aesthetic.";

Now, using .replace() method with a regular expression we can remove all the above types of line breaks:

randomString = randomString.replace(/(\r\n|\n|\r)/gm, "");

If we want to replace all 3 types of line breaks with a space:

randomString = randomString.replace(/(\r\n|\n|\r)/gm, " ");

Finally, in case you want to replace line breaks with a non breaking space:

randomString = randomString.replace(/(\r\n|\n|\r)/gm, "\u00A0");