Carriage return facts for kids

A carriage return (often shortened to CR or return) is a special command or signal. It tells a device, like a printer or a computer screen, to move its position to the very beginning of the current line of text. Think of it like pressing the "return" key on a keyboard. It's closely related to the idea of a new line or line feed, but it specifically focuses on going back to the start of the line you are on.

Carriage Return in Computers

In the world of computers, a carriage return is a special character. It tells a printer or a screen to move the cursor (the blinking line where text appears) or the print head back to the start of the current line.

The name "carriage return" comes from old teletypewriters and typewriters. On these machines, the "carriage" was the part that held the paper and moved across as you typed. When you wanted to start a new line, you would physically "return" the carriage to the left side of the machine. The carriage return command does the same thing digitally.

On some older computer systems, like early Macintosh computers, the carriage return character also created a new line, similar to what a "line feed" character does. Today, most systems use a combination of carriage return and line feed to create a new line and move to the beginning of it.

Images for kids

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  An old Underwood Touchmaster Five typewriter. The lever on the left is the carriage return lever.

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  A robot icon.