Carriage return facts for kids

A carriage return, sometimes known as a cartridge return and often shortened to CR, <CR> or return, is a control character or mechanism used to reset a device's position to the beginning of a line of text. It is closely associated with the line feed and newline concepts, although it can be considered separately in its own right.

Computers

In computing, the carriage return is the name of a computer character that directs a printer or screen display to return to the start of a line when printing or displaying text. The origin of its name is as you'd expect: it told a teletype that its print carriage (the cylinder that held the paper) should return to the beginning of a line. On some systems, such as older Macintoshes, it also creates a new line, like the line feed character.

Images for kids

• 

  Touchmaster Five with Carriage Return Lever at left

See also

In Spanish: Retorno de carro para niños