HTML5 canvas ctx.fillText won't do line breaks?

Question

If you just want to take care of the newline chars in the text you could simulate it by splitting the text at the newlines and calling multiple times the fillText()

Something like http://jsfiddle.net/BaG4J/1/

var c = document.getElementById('c').getContext('2d');
c.font = '11px Courier';
    console.log(c);
var txt = 'line 1\nline 2\nthird line..';
var x = 30;
var y = 30;
var lineheight = 15;
var lines = txt.split('\n');

for (var i = 0; i<lines.length; i++)
    c.fillText(lines[i], x, y + (i*lineheight) );

canvas{background-color:#ccc;}

<canvas id="c" width="150" height="150"></canvas>

---

I just made a wrapping proof of concept (absolute wrap at specified width. No handling words breaking, yet)
example at http://jsfiddle.net/BaG4J/2/

var c = document.getElementById('c').getContext('2d');
c.font = '11px Courier';

var txt = 'this is a very long text to print';

printAt(c, txt, 10, 20, 15, 90 );


function printAt( context , text, x, y, lineHeight, fitWidth)
{
    fitWidth = fitWidth || 0;
    
    if (fitWidth <= 0)
    {
         context.fillText( text, x, y );
        return;
    }
    
    for (var idx = 1; idx <= text.length; idx++)
    {
        var str = text.substr(0, idx);
        console.log(str, context.measureText(str).width, fitWidth);
        if (context.measureText(str).width > fitWidth)
        {
            context.fillText( text.substr(0, idx-1), x, y );
            printAt(context, text.substr(idx-1), x, y + lineHeight, lineHeight,  fitWidth);
            return;
        }
    }
    context.fillText( text, x, y );
}

canvas{background-color:#ccc;}

<canvas id="c" width="150" height="150"></canvas>

---

And a word-wrapping (breaking at spaces) proof of concept.
example at http://jsfiddle.net/BaG4J/5/

var c = document.getElementById('c').getContext('2d');
c.font = '11px Courier';

var txt = 'this is a very long text. Some more to print!';

printAtWordWrap(c, txt, 10, 20, 15, 90 );


function printAtWordWrap( context , text, x, y, lineHeight, fitWidth)
{
    fitWidth = fitWidth || 0;
    
    if (fitWidth <= 0)
    {
        context.fillText( text, x, y );
        return;
    }
    var words = text.split(' ');
    var currentLine = 0;
    var idx = 1;
    while (words.length > 0 && idx <= words.length)
    {
        var str = words.slice(0,idx).join(' ');
        var w = context.measureText(str).width;
        if ( w > fitWidth )
        {
            if (idx==1)
            {
                idx=2;
            }
            context.fillText( words.slice(0,idx-1).join(' '), x, y + (lineHeight*currentLine) );
            currentLine++;
            words = words.splice(idx-1);
            idx = 1;
        }
        else
        {idx++;}
    }
    if  (idx > 0)
        context.fillText( words.join(' '), x, y + (lineHeight*currentLine) );
}

canvas{background-color:#ccc;}

<canvas id="c" width="150" height="150"></canvas>

---

In the second and third examples i am using the measureText() method which shows how long (in pixels) a string will be when printed.

I'm afraid it is a limitation of Canvas' fillText. There is no multi-line support. Whats worse, there's no built-in way to measure line height, only width, making doing it yourself even harder!

A lot of people have written their own multi-line support, perhaps the most notable project that has is Mozilla Skywriter.

The gist of what you'll need to do is multiple fillText calls while adding the height of the text to the y value each time. (measuring the width of M is what the skywriter people do to approximate text, I believe.)

Maybe coming to this party a bit late, but I found the following tutorial for wrapping text on a canvas perfect.

http://www.html5canvastutorials.com/tutorials/html5-canvas-wrap-text-tutorial/

From that I was able to think get multi lines working (sorry Ramirez, yours didn't work for me!). My complete code to wrap text in a canvas is as follows:

<script type="text/javascript">

     // http: //www.html5canvastutorials.com/tutorials/html5-canvas-wrap-text-tutorial/
     function wrapText(context, text, x, y, maxWidth, lineHeight) {
        var cars = text.split("\n");

        for (var ii = 0; ii < cars.length; ii++) {

            var line = "";
            var words = cars[ii].split(" ");

            for (var n = 0; n < words.length; n++) {
                var testLine = line + words[n] + " ";
                var metrics = context.measureText(testLine);
                var testWidth = metrics.width;

                if (testWidth > maxWidth) {
                    context.fillText(line, x, y);
                    line = words[n] + " ";
                    y += lineHeight;
                }
                else {
                    line = testLine;
                }
            }

            context.fillText(line, x, y);
            y += lineHeight;
        }
     }

     function DrawText() {

         var canvas = document.getElementById("c");
         var context = canvas.getContext("2d");

         context.clearRect(0, 0, 500, 600);

         var maxWidth = 400;
         var lineHeight = 60;
         var x = 20; // (canvas.width - maxWidth) / 2;
         var y = 58;


         var text = document.getElementById("text").value.toUpperCase();                

         context.fillStyle = "rgba(255, 0, 0, 1)";
         context.fillRect(0, 0, 600, 500);

         context.font = "51px 'LeagueGothicRegular'";
         context.fillStyle = "#333";

         wrapText(context, text, x, y, maxWidth, lineHeight);
     }

     $(document).ready(function () {

         $("#text").keyup(function () {
             DrawText();
         });

     });

    </script>

Where c is the ID of my canvas and text is the ID of my textbox.

As you can probably see am using a non-standard font. You can use @font-face as long as you have used the font on some text PRIOR to manipulating the canvas - otherwise the canvas won't pick up the font.

Hope this helps someone.

Split the text into lines, and draw each separately:

function fillTextMultiLine(ctx, text, x, y) {
  var lineHeight = ctx.measureText("M").width * 1.2;
  var lines = text.split("\n");
  for (var i = 0; i < lines.length; ++i) {
    ctx.fillText(lines[i], x, y);
    y += lineHeight;
  }
}