# Format preferences

You can set the default format such as font type or file encoding for new documents.
Changes you make here will take effect when you next create/open a document.

□ Soft wrap lines
  When this option is turned on, CotEditor soft-wraps long lines so that you can view them within the window width. Otherwise, CotEditor shows horizontal scroll bar without wrapping text.

□ Auto indent
  When this option is selected, CotEditor automatically indents each line you create by hitting the Return/Enter key. The new line will begin at the same indentation point as the previous line.

□ Fix line height with composite font
  With this option turned on, CotEditor forces the line height to be fixed regardless of the font you use or the character you input.
  The line height gets larger than when this option is off.
  Line spacing:
    You can adjust line spacing with a value indicating the number of lines. The range you can set is from 0.00 to 10.00 (lines).
    (The actual height of space between lines is the product of the value you set here and the point size of the font)

□ Auto expand tabs to spaces
  With this option turned on, CotEditor automatically converts tab characters to spaces as you type.
  □ Tab/Indent width:
    You can specify the number of spaces to which a tab character is expanded. 4 or 8 spaces are typically used.

Line endings for new documents:
  You can set the default line ending style used when creating a new document.

File Encoding
  When creating a file:
    You can set the default character encoding used when creating a new document.
  When opening a file:
    You can set the default character encoding used when opening an existing file. Auto-Detect will do fine for most cases.
    □ Save UTF-8 files with a BOM (not recommended)
      Turn this option on if you want to add a BOM (Byte Order Mark) to any file you save as UTF-8.
      UTF-8 with BOM can be problematic in some cases, so use this option with care. Leaving this option off is recommended unless you have a specific need for it.
    □ Refer to encoding declaration
      When this option is selected, CotEditor respects the encoding declaration written in your document.
      CotEditor can detect charset=, encoding=, and @charset (in order of precedence).
      See Using encoding declarations (charset=, encoding=, @charset) for auto-detection for more details.
  Edit Encoding List
    You can customize the order of encodings that appear in the File Encoding submenu of the Format menu and the File Encoding drop-down list on the toolbar. This order is also used for encoding auto-detection and CotEditor tries each encoding from the top of the list. See Setting the priority of encoding auto-detection for more details.

- In the case you've selected anything other than Auto-Detect for “When opening a file,” if CotEditor opened a file with a different encoding from the one used to create the file, you need to manually make CotEditor reinterpret it.

Font
  You can set the default font type and size.
  □ Anti-aliasing
    With this option selected, CotEditor displays text anti-aliased.

## See also

- Setting the priority of encoding auto-detection
- preferences