List Formatter: Bullets, Numbering, Quotes and Columns
Format a list in your browser: add or remove bullets and numbering, prefixes, suffixes and quotes, pad, trim, wrap, change or normalize separators, join items, arrange in columns, colour items as HTML or draw the list as a PNG. Nothing is uploaded.
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About the list formatter
This page reformats a list of items in your browser. Paste a list, pick one operation and the formatted list appears at once, ready to copy or download as a text file. Items are split by a separator you choose: a new line by default, or a comma, semicolon, tab, space or any custom text. The result is written with an output separator of your choice, so the same step can also turn a column of lines into a comma-separated row. Everything runs on this page, and your list is never uploaded.
How to format a list
Steps
- Type or paste the list into Input, one item per line, or choose the Input separator that your list uses.
- Pick an Operation, such as Add bullets, Add a counter, Quote items or Arrange in columns, and set its options.
- Choose the Output separator. Turn on Remove empty items to drop blank lines first.
- Press Copy, or Download .txt to save the result.
Operations
Bullets and counters
Add bullets puts •, –, *, ▪, ◦ or your own symbol and a space in front of every item. Remove bullets and numbering strips common bullet glyphs and counters such as 1., a), (3) and iv., but leaves a value such as -5 alone because a bullet must be followed by a space. Add a counter numbers items as 1., 1), (1), a. or i., with a start value, a step (negative steps count down) and optional zero padding, so 08., 10., 12. is one setting away.
Prefixes, suffixes, quotes and wrapping
Add or remove a prefix or suffix on every item; removal only touches items that really start or end with that text. Quote items in double quotes, single quotes, backticks or a custom mark, optionally escaping quotes already inside an item with a backslash, and unquote them again. Wrap text around items adds text before and after each one, which turns a plain list into <li> elements or SQL values, and Unwrap removes it.
Padding and trimming
Left or right pad items to the length of the longest item or to a fixed width, with any single pad character, so numbers line up as 007 or labels get dot leaders. Trim removes whitespace, or characters you list, from the left, the right or both ends of each item.
Separators, joining and columns
Change separator rewrites the list with the output separator. Normalize separators accepts a messy list mixing commas, semicolons, pipes, tabs and blank lines and writes it with one separator. Delete separator joins items with nothing, and Join items uses your own glue with an optional last glue, as in "red, green and blue". Arrange in columns lays items out in a grid, filled across or down, padded with spaces so the columns line up in a monospaced font.
Colours and images
Colour items gives each item a colour from a palette of distinct colours or a random hue, shows a preview and writes HTML <span> elements you can paste into a web page. List to image draws the items as lines of text on a PNG, with your font size, padding and colours; the List to Image page explains it in more detail.
Limits
Up to 100,000 items are accepted. A list image can be up to 8,192 pixels on each side, which is enough for several hundred lines at a normal font size.
Related tools
To sort or shuffle a list, use the List Sorter. To drop repeated lines, use the Duplicate Remover. For sums and averages of a list of numbers, see the Number List Calculator, and the Add Bullets to List page opens this tool with bullets ready.
Open-source credits
- The list formatter is implemented in-house for this site and uses no third-party library. Splitting and joining use the regular expressions and string methods of ECMA-262, the ECMAScript language specification.
- Letter counters use bijective base-26 numbering, the scheme of spreadsheet column names, and Roman counters reuse the site's own Roman numeral converter.
- The distinct colour palette follows Sasha Trubetskoy's published list of 20 simple, distinct colours. List images are drawn with the browser's standard HTML Canvas 2D API.
Frequently asked questions
How do I turn a column of lines into a comma-separated list?
Choose Change separator as the operation, keep New line as the input separator and pick Comma as the output separator. Each line becomes one item and the items are joined with a comma and a space. Choose Custom to join them with any other text, such as a pipe.
Does the formatter keep empty lines?
Yes. A blank line counts as an empty item, so it keeps its place and gets a bullet, a counter or quotes like any other item. Turn on Remove empty items to drop blank and whitespace-only items first. A single line break at the very end of the input is ignored, because most editors add one.
Why does Remove bullets leave some dashes in place?
A bullet or counter is only removed when a space follows it, which is how list markers are written. That rule keeps negative numbers such as -5, hyphenated words and dates intact, while `- item`, `• item`, `1. item` and `a) item` are all cleaned.
Can I number a list with letters or Roman numerals?
Yes. Add a counter offers 1., 1), (1), a. and i. styles. Letters continue past z as aa, ab and so on, like spreadsheet columns. Letter counters must stay at 1 or above and Roman counters between 1 and 3,999, so the page reports a start or step that would leave that range.
Is the coloured list HTML safe to paste into a web page?
Each item is wrapped in a span with an inline colour style, and the characters &, <, >, quotes and apostrophes inside items are escaped as HTML entities. Text that looks like a tag is therefore shown as text and cannot inject markup into the page you paste it into.
How large can a list image be?
The PNG can be up to 8,192 pixels wide and tall, a size every common browser can still draw and save. Its height is the padding plus 1.4 times the font size for each line, so a smaller font or fewer items fits a longer list. The page explains which limit was reached.