How can I add a visual margin on the right of my window?

Question

Here is my document; the entire text is on a single line:

However, I would like it to be not so wide; for example by using set textwidth=40 and gq I get my desired results:

The problem with this is that it affects the actual contents of the buffer, whereas I want the changes to be just visual.

I looked at changing columns, but that changes the width of my terminal as well, and this seems like a hack in the first place.

Is there any good way to add a margin to the right side? (The example is slightly exaggerated; in reality I'd want more like 4-5 characters)

Related:

Answer 1

I would simply just :rightbelow vnew together with :set wrap and adjust the windows at will

Answer 2

If you can't find a decent solution that actually rearranges text perhaps you'll be in the market for a way to make the margin stand out visually. I use the colorcolumn option.

:h 'colorcolumn'

'colorcolumn' is a comma separated list of screen columns that are highlighted with ColorColumn |hl-ColorColumn|. Useful to align text. Will make screen redrawing slower.

The screen column can be an absolute number, or a number preceded with '+' or '-', which is added to or subtracted from 'textwidth'.

I take it to the extreme and color "all" columns right of my textwidth setting with this

let &colorcolumn='+' . join(range(1,256), ',+')

(I've not had any issues with slow screen redraws but this might not work well with slower gfx configurations.)

Here is an example with a subtle color choice. Color can be changed by changing appropriate highlight: :highlight ColorColumn ctermbg=4 ...