how to turn on word wrap in linux less viewer? [closed]

Question

Word wrap mode of "less" viewer is disabled by default in the system I work on. According to "less" viewer help, it is disabled with -S or --chop-long-lines flags. I did not find how to force word wrap on my system. Is there any known flag, or any other way, for enabling the mode?

Original

What do you mean by force word wrap on my system? – Gervais

my system = virtual linux machine in my work (logging in from windows with VNC viewer), cent os 6.5, gnome, tc shell. – Original

Answer 1

You may try using the LESS environment variable. For example, you can put the following into system-wide shell initialization script (/etc/profile for bash/ksh):

 export LESS="-S "

Gervais

thanks. solved. when i do echo "$LESS" i see "-i-S-q-u-R". That's why word wrap is disabled by default. – Original

Answer 2

Word wrapping is disabled using -S. Following the man page, you can reset that option by passing -+S to the command line.

Let's say you have $LESS set to -S, you can re-enable it on the command line with

less -+S file

Ajmer

Great tip for a plus sign! – Buhl