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Daniel_Marcos
New Member
July 3, 2023

Allow break lines in string variables

  • July 3, 2023
  • 22 replies
  • 7795 views

I’m trying to localize an app using the new variables feature but it looks like I can’t add break lines to the string.
For titles, especially in some languages like Japanese where there are no spaces, it is totally necessary.

Is this planned for the near future?

22 replies

tcldr
May 23, 2024

Apple’s IDE, Xcode, handles this well in its Strings catalogs using an alt-return. A multiline browser would be a nice touch too.

The interface looks like this:

S_e_b_a_s_t_i_a_n
New Participant
June 12, 2024

This works, but the result is different to a real paragraph spacing.
And I hate Figma for stupid work arounds like this 🤯

rahend
Active Member
June 25, 2024

Indeed, we need a real thing than an approach look-a-like

Sergey_Tomashevsky
New Participant
December 29, 2024
Ioana_Ionescu
New Participant
March 17, 2025

@Daniel_Marcos
There is a workaround this issue. Before pasting text into variable input, put it aside as plain text, make a break line with shift + enter shortcut, then copy and paste this text to the variable input

 

 

This didn’t work for me. Does it still work for you? Do you have another solution? Thanks!

Jeremias_Santos
New Member
April 7, 2025

@Ioana_Ionescu Are you sure? I’ve just tested the aforementioned method and it worked! Just paste the desired text (with your break lines created) to the input, just like you would with any other local variable value.

 

Ioana_Ionescu
New Participant
April 8, 2025

@Ioana_Ionescu Are you sure? I’ve just tested the aforementioned method and it worked! Just paste the desired text (with your break lines created) to the input, just like you would with any other local variable value.

 

@Jeremias_Santos 
Yes, I just tried it again and it doesn’t work :( I pasted the text with the break lines from Notepad and it’s still just one line of text. I used a unicode - Line Separator (U+2028): [‌
] I pasted the value between the brackets where I wanted my break line to be. That’s the only way I could make it work. 

Jeremias_Santos
New Member
April 8, 2025

@Ioana_Ionescu Have you tried creating the break lines in Figma with the Text tool? Copy the text from there, not Notepad, and it should work.

Ioana_Ionescu
New Participant
April 8, 2025

@Jeremias_Santos Thanks! Looks like it worked this time. I tried it when I first came across this issue and at the time it didn't work. 

Emile_S
New Participant
July 4, 2025

Using the text tool in figma to add multiple line breaks and pasting into variables didn’t work (Figma on pc). 

Shift+enter in variables editor doesn’t work.

The only thing that worked was copying and pasting - Line Separator (U+2028): [‌
] I From ​@Ioana_Ionescu  post above for which I thank greatly. 

This really shouldn’t be an issue. I really hope that now UI3 is out, they can focus on doing something actually worth while, like making variables interface a bit more user friendly.