To add a prefix to all lines in Notepad++, hold Alt+Shift and press the Down arrow until every line is selected, then type the prefix once and Notepad++ inserts it at the start of every line in that column block. The same keyboard trick works for suffixes: move the column caret to the end of each line, type, and the suffix appears on every line at once. This built-in column-mode editing is fast for files already open in Notepad++ and stays entirely on your local machine. The Add Prefix and Suffix to Lines tool on Lizely performs the exact same operation in any modern browser, accepts a pasted list of up to one million characters, lets you type a prefix, a suffix, or both (each limited to 200 Unicode characters), previews the result and downloads a plain UTF-8 TXT file with normalized LF line endings. No regex, Markdown, HTML, or replacement tokens are involved; every character typed in the prefix and suffix fields is inserted exactly as written, which makes the transformation predictable for list markers, quotes, delimiters, SQL fragments, and shell comments.
How Notepad++ Adds a Prefix to Every Line
Notepad++ is a free Windows text editor that supports multi-caret editing, which is the feature most users reach for when they need to add a prefix to all lines. The shortcut relies on the Alt key to switch into column mode, where a single keystroke is mirrored down every selected line at once.
To use the built-in method inside Notepad++:
- Open the file you want to edit, or paste your list of lines into a new document.
- Click at the very beginning of the first line.
- Hold Alt+Shift and press the Down arrow repeatedly until the column caret reaches the last line.
- Type the prefix. Notepad++ inserts the same characters at the start of every selected line.
- To add a suffix instead, click at the end of the first line, repeat the Alt+Shift+Down extension, and type the suffix.
The same Alt+Shift+Down trick works for inserting text in the middle of every line. Hold Alt and drag with the mouse to create a rectangular selection if you prefer a visual approach to the column caret.
A few caveats are worth knowing. Notepad++ does not prompt you about what to do with empty lines; column editing decorates them along with everything else. The change is also written straight back to the open file as soon as you save, with no separate preview step, so a mistake is permanent unless you use Undo (Ctrl+Z) immediately.
Where Notepad++ Stops and a Browser Tool Helps
There are several situations where Notepad++ column editing is the wrong tool, even though the underlying job is identical. The first is portability: Notepad++ only runs on Windows, and most users searching for a quick fix are not sitting in front of their own machine. The second is collaboration: a colleague who needs the decorated file may not have Notepad++ installed, and sending a screenshot of the column-caret technique does not help them. The third is verification: Notepad++ has no preview pane, so you only see the result after you have already typed it.
The Add Prefix and Suffix to Lines tool solves these problems because it runs in any modern browser, has nothing to install, and shows you exactly what the final file will contain before you download it. Everything happens on the client side: the pasted text, the prefix, the suffix, and the generated output all stay in the browser tab, and the resulting file is produced locally using the browser's built-in Blob support, which is part of the standard web platform defined on MDN's Blob reference page. Nothing is uploaded to Lizely.
How to Use the Add Prefix and Suffix to Lines Tool
Once you decide the browser route is the right one, the tool is deliberately short. Three controls do all the work: an input area for the lines you want to decorate, a prefix field, and a suffix field. The actual transformation takes one click.
Follow these steps to add a prefix (or suffix) to every line of pasted text:
- Paste or type your lines into the input area. Up to one million characters are accepted; any line order and internal whitespace you supply are preserved.
- Type your prefix into the Prefix field, your suffix into the Suffix field, or both. At least one of the two must be non-empty. Each field accepts up to 200 Unicode characters and is treated literally, so brackets, quotes, dollar signs, backslashes, asterisks, and parentheses are inserted exactly as you typed them.
- Decide whether whitespace-only lines should be left unchanged. With Leave blank lines unchanged enabled, empty lines and lines that contain only spaces or tabs are returned untouched. With it disabled, every logical line is decorated, including empty and whitespace-only lines.
- Click the generate button. The preview area shows the exact output string, preserving spaces and newlines so you can inspect indentation, bullet characters, and trailing whitespace before downloading.
- Download the result as a UTF-8 TXT file. The downloaded file contains the generated string verbatim, with CRLF, CR, and LF line endings normalized to LF.
If you edit any control after generating, the previous result is cleared and its download link is revoked, which prevents you from accidentally keeping an outdated file.
Blank Lines, Whitespace, and Line Endings Explained
Three details frequently surprise first-time users of any line-decoration tool, and the Add Prefix and Suffix to Lines tool handles each one explicitly.
First, the blank-line policy. A trailing newline in the input creates a final empty logical line. With the skip option enabled, that final line stays empty and does not receive the prefix or suffix. With the skip option disabled, the same line is decorated, which keeps the output line count exactly equal to the input line count and avoids silently dropping the final boundary. Neither choice ever deletes a line.
Second, what counts as blank. Empty strings and lines that contain only whitespace, including spaces and tabs, are both treated as blank. A line with spaces is therefore not decorated under the skip policy, and its leading spaces are not trimmed (per the JavaScript String.trim reference on MDN), which means the tool never alters the content of lines you told it to skip.
Third, line endings. Windows files commonly use CRLF, classic Mac files use CR, and Unix files use LF. The tool recognizes all three and normalizes the generated output to LF, so the downloaded file behaves consistently when pasted into modern editors, scripts, and shell pipelines. Visual wrapping in the preview is purely a display effect and does not insert a real newline into the file.
Common Use Cases for Literal Prefixes and Suffixes
Because the tool treats prefix and suffix as plain text, it is well suited to jobs where predictability matters more than cleverness. The following table lists a few recurring scenarios and what you would type into the Prefix and Suffix fields.
| Use case | Prefix | Suffix | Result for the line apple |
|---|---|---|---|
| Markdown bullet list | - | (empty) | - apple |
| Shell comment block | # | (empty) | # apple |
| Wrap each line in quotes | " | " | "apple" |
| SQL value tuple | ( | ), | (apple), |
| Logging tag | [INFO] | - ok | [INFO] apple - ok |
| HTML list item | <li> | </li> | <li>apple</li> |
These are the kinds of list markers, comment tags, delimiters, and HTML fragments that the tool is explicitly designed for. It is also useful for surrounding identifiers with parentheses, indenting every line with two spaces, and closing punctuation on a long list. It is not designed for finding and replacing text inside lines, adding sequential numbers, parsing CSV fields, or editing a Word document. For those jobs, the Add Line Numbers to Text tool, the Find and Replace Text tool, or your spreadsheet program is the right next step.