Java tutorial
import javax.swing.JTextArea; import javax.swing.text.Document; import javax.swing.text.Element; import javax.swing.text.ElementIterator; public class Main { public static void main(String[] argv) throws Exception { JTextArea textArea = new JTextArea("word1 word2\nword3\nword4"); Document doc = textArea.getDocument(); ElementIterator it = new ElementIterator(doc.getDefaultRootElement()); Element e; while ((e = it.next()) != null) { if (e.isLeaf()) { int rangeStart = e.getStartOffset(); int rangeEnd = e.getEndOffset(); String line = textArea.getText(rangeStart, rangeEnd - rangeStart); System.out.println(line); } } } }