Paragraph splitter — break a wall of text into paragraphs

How to use the paragraph splitter

1. Paste your text into Unbroken text. Text copied from a PDF, with line breaks in odd places, works too.
2. Set Sentences per paragraph, from 1 to 20.
3. Tick Keep existing paragraph breaks if some of your paragraphs are already right and should stay separate.
4. Copy the Formatted text. The counts above it show how many paragraphs and sentences were made.

What it does and when to use it

A single block of text is hard to read and hard to revise. Transcribed lecture notes, text copied from a PDF, speech-to-text output and long forum posts often arrive like this. The splitter gives the text even breathing space quickly, so you can then adjust the breaks where the ideas change.

After splitting, the readability score checker shows whether the sentences themselves are too long, and the essay word counter counts words and paragraphs. For lecture notes, the note formatter turns them into bullet points or Cornell notes instead.

How it works

First, every line break inside a block becomes a space. The text is then cut into sentences: a sentence ends at “.”, “!”, “?” or “…” (with any closing quote or bracket) followed by a space or the end of the text. The cut is skipped after a known abbreviation, a single letter, a dotted abbreviation, or when the next word begins with a lowercase letter. Finally the sentences are grouped in order, the chosen number at a time; the last paragraph takes whatever is left. The tool runs in your browser.

Worked examples

Keeping your breaks. Two paragraphs, of 2 and 3 sentences, with 3 sentences per paragraph and the box ticked. Each paragraph is split on its own, so the output keeps the same two paragraphs: “Plants need light. They also need water.” and the three sentences about animals.

Ignoring your breaks. The same text with the box unticked becomes one stream of 5 sentences. The first paragraph now ends with “Animals eat plants.” and the second holds the last two sentences.

Tricky full stops. “The price rose 2.5 per cent. Mr. Brown, of the U.K. office, agreed! Why? Nobody knew.” with 2 per paragraph gives two paragraphs of two sentences. The decimal, “Mr.” and “U.K.” do not cause a split.

Limits and tips

• Grouping by count cannot see meaning. A new topic may start mid-paragraph; move it by hand.
• An abbreviation that is not on the built-in list, such as “Sec.”, causes a break when a capital letter follows it.
• Headings or list items without end punctuation join the following sentence. Add the headings back after splitting.