How to Print Newlines in Python

The newline character (\n) is fundamental for controlling output in Python.

This guide explores various methods for adding newlines when printing, covering techniques from simple string concatenation and f-strings to multiline strings, joining list items, and using platform-specific newline conventions.

Printing Newlines with String Concatenation

The most basic method is to concatenate the newline character (\n) with a string:

variable = "tutorial"
my_str = variable + '\n' + 'reference'
print(my_str)

Output:

tutorial
reference

• The \n character inserts a newline, causing reference to print on a new line.

Printing Newlines with f-strings

F-strings provide a more concise way to embed newlines within strings:

variable = "tutorial"
my_str = f'{variable}\nreference'
print(my_str)

Output:

tutorial
reference

• The \n character within the f-string causes the line break.
• f-strings automatically convert the value to a string, so no explicit conversion is necessary.

Printing Newlines with Triple-Quoted Strings

Triple-quoted strings preserve newlines literally, and allow the use of single and double quotes within the string without escaping:

variable = "tutorial"
my_str = f"""\
{variable}
reference
com"""
print(my_str)

Output:

tutorial
reference
com

• The backslash after the starting triple quote avoids an empty line at the top of the string.
• Triple quoted strings are useful if you need to create multi-line strings.

Printing Newlines After Each List Item

To print items from a list on separate lines, you can use the str.join() method with \n or use a for loop.

1. Using String Join

Use str.join() to add a newline character between every item of a list:

my_list = ['tutorial', 'reference', 'com']
result = '\n'.join(my_list)
print(result)

Output:

tutorial
reference
com

If you have numbers in your list, you must first convert them to strings:

my_list = [2, 4, 8]
result = '\n'.join(str(num) for num in my_list)
print(result)

Output:

2
4
8

2. Using a For Loop

Alternatively you can use a for loop to iterate over the items of the list and print each item on a separate line using print():

my_list = ['tutorial', 'reference', 'com']
for item in my_list:
    print(item)

• The default behavior of the print() function is to add a newline at the end of each output.

Using os.linesep for Platform-Specific Newlines

The os.linesep attribute returns the correct newline character sequence for the current operating system, which is useful if you're developing cross-platform applications:

import os

my_str = f"tutorial{os.linesep}reference{os.linesep}com"
print(my_str)

Output:

tutorial
reference
com

Working with Newlines in Files

Newlines are added automatically when reading files with readlines(), and can be added when writing to a file.

1. Reading Newlines from Files

When reading a file using readlines(), newline characters are automatically added at the end of each line.

with open('example.txt', 'r', encoding="utf-8") as f:
    lines = f.readlines()
    print(lines)

    for line in lines:
        print(line, end='')

2. Writing Newlines to Files

Use \n character when writing to a file to add newlines.

with open('example.txt', 'w', encoding="utf-8") as my_file:
    my_file.write('tutorial' + '\n')
    my_file.write('reference' + '\n')
    my_file.write('com' + '\n')