How to enter multiline caption in Lightroom metadata preset?

Question

I want to insert a predefined image description (called "Description" in Adobe Bridge CS5 and "caption" in Adobe Lightroom). I defined a metadata preset with the relevant tags and keywords.

How to enter a multiline caption (text with line breaks) in Adobe Lightroom's metadata preset?

E.g.

This is line 1.
This is line 2.

This is line 3.

When I edit a preset from the menu "Metadata" -> "Edit metadata preset" and insert a multiline text (e.g. by CTRL+V from Notepad) it either ignores the linebreak or ignores all the text after the 1st linebreak.

One partial solution is to avoid line breaks in the preset and enter them manually after applying the preset to the new file(s).

I work on Windows 10 with Lightroom Classic. Update: I work on Windows 11 with Lightroom Classic (latest version).

Answer 1

If you create the description in LR the line breaks should be there and preserved. But you need to write the exif to file (LR) if not enabled by default; bridge automatically creates an XMP sidecar file.

When viewing the metadata in Windows explorer it removes the line breaks; but they do exist in the metadata.

To create a multi line preset use Option+Enter (Mac) or Control+Enter (Win) to add a carriage return at the end of each line. You then have to use up/down arrows on the keyboard to see each line separately in the preset window.

When the saved preset is applied, the caption will be multi line.

Answer 2

In Adobe Lightroom, to create a metadata preset with multiline captions, you'll need to use vertical bars (|) to indicate line breaks. Here's how:

Go to Metadata > Edit Metadata Presets In the Caption field, write your text with | symbols where you want line breaks, like: First line|Second line|Third line

Save the preset with a name When you apply this preset, Lightroom will convert the | symbols into actual line breaks