Add or Remove Line Numbers

Line numbers make a text easy to discuss: “look at line 14” is quicker than quoting it. They also get in the way when you copy code from a tutorial, a list from a website or a transcript from a PDF and the numbers come along. This tool does both jobs.

Choosing a format

The dot style (1. Text) is the usual choice for steps and lists. The parenthesis (1) Text) and colon (1: Text) styles suit legal outlines and logs, square brackets ([1] Text) suit references, and a plain space or a tab suits code and spreadsheets. Roman numerals and letters are available for outlines and appendices. The start number and the step can be changed, so you can continue a list at 21 or number by tens like old BASIC programs.

Alignment and padding

When numbers have different widths, the text after them starts in different places. Zero padding writes 01 to 10, or 001 to 100, which also keeps the lines in order if you sort them as text later. Space padding right-aligns the numbers instead, which looks tidy in a monospaced font and in code reviews.

Blank lines

Poems, scripts and code have empty lines that should usually stay unnumbered. With “Leave empty lines unnumbered”, numbering continues on the next line with text. If you need the numbers to match a code editor, where every line has a number even when it is blank, also turn on “but count them”: blank lines still get no visible number, but the counter advances, so line 12 here is line 12 in the editor.

Removing numbers and list markers

Switch to Remove to strip numbering from the start of each line. Recognised patterns include 12. and 12) and 12: , bracketed numbers like [3], padded numbers like 007, Roman numerals followed by a dot or bracket, and single letters such as b). A space or tab must follow the number, which protects lines that merely start with a number in a sentence, though a line like “2026 was a good year” would still lose its year, so read the result. Turn on the bullet option to remove •, -, * and similar markers as well.

Where it helps

Teachers number the lines of a poem or a passage for close reading. Writers number script lines for a table read. Developers number code for a review or remove numbers from code copied off a website. Anyone formatting instructions can number the steps before printing them.

Nothing leaves your browser

Numbering and removing numbers run on your device. The text is never uploaded, so it is safe for unpublished drafts and private code.

A worked example

A recipe pasted with blank lines between its steps looks like this: “Preheat the oven”, “Mix the flour”, an empty line, “Add the butter”. With the dot format, start 1, step 1 and “Leave empty lines unnumbered” on, the result reads 1. Preheat the oven, 2. Mix the flour, an empty line, 3. Add the butter. Turn on “but count them” and the third step becomes 4, matching the line numbers a code editor would show. Switching to Remove on that result gives back the original text, empty line included, which is an easy way to check that nothing else changed.

Related tools

Put the list in order first with Sort Text Lines, add other text to each line with Add Prefix and Suffix, or clean up broken lines from a PDF with the Text Cleaner.