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I'm using Windows 7 and I would like to quickly create a small text file with a few lines of text in the Command prompt.

I can create a single line text file with:

echo hello > myfile.txt

but how can I create a text file with multiple lines using this echo command? I have tried with the following, which doesn't work when I read the file with more:

echo hello\nsecond line > myfile.txt

Any suggestions? Or is there any other standard command that I can use for this instead of echo?

Jonas
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4 Answers4

21

There are three ways.

  1. Append each line using >>:

    C:\Users\Elias>echo foo > a.txt
C:\Users\Elias>echo bar >> a.txt

  2. Use parentheses to echo multiple lines:

    C:\Users\Elias>(echo foo
More? echo bar) > a.txt

  3. Type caret (^) and hit ENTER twice after each line to continue adding lines:

    C:\Users\Elias>echo foo^
More?
More? bar > a.txt

All the above produce the same file:

C:\Users\Elias>type a.txt
foo
bar
Bugalugs Nash
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efotinis
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17

You could use the >> characters to append a second line to the file, e.g.

echo hello > myfile.txt
echo second line >> myfile.txt
Bugalugs Nash
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Ian Baker
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2

If you REALLY want to type everything in a single line you can just put an & for each new line, like:

echo hello >> myfile.txt & echo second line >> myfile.txt

but efotinis' answer is the easiest one.

Doug
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-2

You can put a space between each line to write:

echo line1 line2 "line 3" > file.txt
Carl
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