Emacs truncate lines in all buffers

Question

What can I put in my .emacs file so that all lines an any kind of buffer always truncate if too long. I do this mostly because I tend to open many frames and it gets hard to read on a small screen if my 80 char lines get wrapped 2 or 3 times over.

Minium

Answer 1

Try M-x toggle-truncate-lines on a per buffer basis, to see if it does what you want.

In .emacs you'd put this, to make it default for all buffers.

(setq-default truncate-lines t)

You may also like:

(setq-default global-visual-line-mode t)

Which you can try out with M-x visual-line-mode (it also toggles.)

^{EmacsWiki references: visual-line-mode truncate-lines}

Eugenioeugenius

So I guess (setq 'global-visual-line-mode t) ? – Minium

It's odd since I thought I tried truncate-lines before to no avail maybe I messed something up, thanks :) – Minium

Yeah it worked now, I tried virtual lines instead but I would just rather have them truncated but thanks for the wiki references on both. – Minium

(global-visual-line-mode 1) ; 1 for on, 0 for off. – Intervalometer

I don't know why but (setq-default truncate-lines t) does not work on my case. but M-x toggle-truncate-lines works. @Eugenioeugenius – Rejoin

@Rejoin - try this question on emacs.stackexchange.com too (emacs.stackexchange.com/search?q=truncate-lines) – Eugenioeugenius

(setq-default truncate-lines t) didn't work on my case @Eugenioeugenius – Rejoin

As others have indicated, (setq-default truncate-lines t) does not work. – Cavallaro

Answer 2

In your .emacs or .emacs.el or .emacs.d/init.el (depends where you locate your main emacs config file), write :

(custom-set-variables
  '(truncate-lines t))

the block custom-set-variables may already exist, so just add '(truncate-lines t) to the list. This way your configuration file keeps clean.

Alternatively you could hook a keybinding, like that :

(local-set-key (kbd "C-x w") 'toggle-truncate-lines)

So you can truncate when the lines are bothering the visual

Oxtail

(global-set-key "\C-x\ w" 'toggle-truncate-lines) also works. – Rejoin

Like the accepted answer, the solution (custom-set-variables '(truncate-lines t)) in this answer does not work for me either. – Cavallaro

Answer 3

If the (setq-default truncate-lines t) didn't work, it's possible that you are in another major mode, ie markdown-mode, etc. In that case, this worked for me. (I tested it on Emacs v28.1 / Doom Emacs on Mac)

;; in init.el, etc...
;; word-wrapping off
(setq-default truncate-lines t)
;; for markdown-mode
(add-hook 'markdown-mode-hook (lambda () (setq truncate-lines t)))

Roxi