Piping your command through fold might do what you need. For example: command | fold -s -w 60 Note that I haven't tested this. More info on fold is available from http://unixhelp.ed.ac.uk/CGI/man-cgi?fold. Specifically the -w width may be of interest, depending on the width of your widget. Not quite automatic word wrap, but this should work on a command-by-command basis.