Notepad++ – How to Indent Wrapped Text

As you said you do not actually want to print it, you may use the Vertical Edge Settings.

Setting > Preferences > Editing > Vertical Edge Settings > Input column position(s) seperated with space, for example 80 100

Vertical lines would then be shown at the positions specified (e.g. column 80 & column 100).

You can tick Background mode if you prefer highlighted text instead of a line.

(Tested in: Notepad++ v7.8.9)

Here's my quick and dirty solution. Really it just involves creating a macro along with enabling a XML tools feature.

First, remove the "Indent By Fold" plugin, if installed.

Then, enable the "Tag auto-close" feature by going to Plugins>XML Tools.

Also, enable Notepad++'s auto indent by going to Settings > Preferences > MISC. Tab

Next, go to Macro > Start Recording.

Now, hit the following keys in this sequence:

>, enter, enter, up, tab.

Then, go to Macro > Stop Recording. Followed by, Macro > Save Current Recorded Macro.

This will create the final '>' as well as the closing tag, but then leave your cursor indented in a new line between the opening and closing tags.

I saved mine as "CTRL + '.'".

The reasoning behind this was that if I was here:

<hello|

The natural thing to do would be to hit the '>' key. Since I need to hit SHIFT+ '.' on a QWERTY keyboard to get this character, I figure I'd use CTRL+'.' (only one key away) to perform the macro and save SHIFT+'.' for cases where I just want the plain old character (e.g. <hello />).

Here is the result after hitting CTRL + '.'

<hello>
   |
</hello>

I'll be on the lookout for a more elegant solution, but for now this seems to be pretty good.

Hope this helps!