I admit I found this a very frustrating experience as it seems many others have, given the number of solutions I see posted and the number of times I see this asked across the web. But I find most of these solutions far too complicated for my likes and I'd like share the tersest simplest solution I have for it.

Here is the script to demonstrate:

#!/usr/bin/python3
import textwrap
from argparse import ArgumentParser, HelpFormatter

class RawFormatter(HelpFormatter):
    def _fill_text(self, text, width, indent):
        return "\n".join([textwrap.fill(line, width) for line in textwrap.indent(textwrap.dedent(text), indent).splitlines()])

program_descripton = f'''
    FunkyTool v1.0

    Created by the Funky Guy on January 1 2020
    Copyright 2020. All rights reserved.

    Licensed under The Hippocratic License 2.1
    https://firstdonoharm.dev/

    Distributed on an "AS IS" basis without warranties
    or conditions of any kind, either express or implied.

    USAGE:
    '''

parser = ArgumentParser(description=program_descripton, formatter_class=RawFormatter)
args = parser.parse_args()

And here is what it looks like in test.py:

$ ./test.py --help
usage: test.py [-h]

FunkyTool v1.0

Created by the Funky Guy on January 1 2020
Copyright 2020. All rights reserved.

Licensed under The Hippocratic License 2.1
https://firstdonoharm.dev/

Distributed on an "AS IS" basis without warranties
or conditions of any kind, either express or implied.

USAGE:

optional arguments:
  -h, --help  show this help message and exit

And so, all the basic formatting in the original description is preserved neatly and we've had, alas, to use a custom formatter, but it's a oneliner. It can be written more lucidly as:

class RawFormatter(HelpFormatter):
    def _fill_text(self, text, width, indent):
        text = textwrap.dedent(text)          # Strip the indent from the original python definition that plagues most of us.
        text = textwrap.indent(text, indent)  # Apply any requested indent.
        text = text.splitlines()              # Make a list of lines
        text = [textwrap.fill(line, width) for line in text] # Wrap each line 
        text = "\n".join(text)                # Join the lines again
        return text

But I prefer it on one line myself.

Starting from SmartFomatter described above, I ended to that solution:

class SmartFormatter(argparse.HelpFormatter):
    '''
         Custom Help Formatter used to split help text when '\n' was 
         inserted in it.
    '''

    def _split_lines(self, text, width):
        r = []
        for t in text.splitlines(): r.extend(argparse.HelpFormatter._split_lines(self, t, width))
        return r

Note that strangely the formatter_class argument passed to top level parser is not inheritated by sub_parsers, one must pass it again for each created sub_parser.

Yet another simple way of getting new lines using RawTextHelpFormatter and deal with the indentation is

import argparse

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
    description='test', formatter_class=argparse.RawTextHelpFormatter)

parser.add_argument('-g', choices=['a', 'b', 'g', 'd', 'e'], default='a',
                    help=('Some option, where\n'
                          ' a = alpha\n'
                          ' b = beta\n'
                          ' g = gamma\n'
                          ' d = delta\n'
                          ' e = epsilon'))

parser.parse_args()

The output is

$ python2 x.py -h
usage: x.py [-h] [-g {a,b,g,d,e}]

test

optional arguments:
  -h, --help      show this help message and exit
  -g {a,b,g,d,e}  Some option, where
                   a = alpha
                   b = beta
                   g = gamma
                   d = delta
                   e = epsilon

Preface

For this question, argparse.RawTextHelpFormatter is helpful to me.

Now, I want to share how do I use the argparse.

I know it may not be related to question,

but these questions have been bothered me for a while.

So I want to share my experience, hope that will be helpful for someone.

Here we go.

3rd Party Modules

colorama: for change the text color: pip install colorama

Makes ANSI escape character sequences (for producing colored terminal text and cursor positioning) work under MS Windows

Example

import colorama
from colorama import Fore, Back
from pathlib import Path
from os import startfile, system

SCRIPT_DIR = Path(__file__).resolve().parent
TEMPLATE_DIR = SCRIPT_DIR.joinpath('.')


def main(args):
    ...


if __name__ == '__main__':
    colorama.init(autoreset=True)

    from argparse import ArgumentParser, RawTextHelpFormatter

    format_text = FormatText([(20, '<'), (60, '<')])
    yellow_dc = format_text.new_dc(fore_color=Fore.YELLOW)
    green_dc = format_text.new_dc(fore_color=Fore.GREEN)
    red_dc = format_text.new_dc(fore_color=Fore.RED, back_color=Back.LIGHTYELLOW_EX)

    script_description = \
        '\n'.join([desc for desc in
                   [f'\n{green_dc(f"python {Path(__file__).name} [REFERENCE TEMPLATE] [OUTPUT FILE NAME]")} to create template.',
                    f'{green_dc(f"python {Path(__file__).name} -l *")} to get all available template',
                    f'{green_dc(f"python {Path(__file__).name} -o open")} open template directory so that you can put your template file there.',
                    # <- add your own description
                    ]])
    arg_parser = ArgumentParser(description=yellow_dc('CREATE TEMPLATE TOOL'),
                                # conflict_handler='resolve',
                                usage=script_description, formatter_class=RawTextHelpFormatter)

    arg_parser.add_argument("ref", help="reference template", nargs='?')
    arg_parser.add_argument("outfile", help="output file name", nargs='?')
    arg_parser.add_argument("action_number", help="action number", nargs='?', type=int)
    arg_parser.add_argument('--list', "-l", dest='list',
                            help=f"example: {green_dc('-l *')} \n"
                                 "description: list current available template. (accept regex)")

    arg_parser.add_argument('--option', "-o", dest='option',
                            help='\n'.join([format_text(msg_data_list) for msg_data_list in [
                                ['example', 'description'],
                                [green_dc('-o open'), 'open template directory so that you can put your template file there.'],
                                [green_dc('-o run'), '...'],
                                [green_dc('-o ...'), '...'],
                                # <- add your own description
                            ]]))

    g_args = arg_parser.parse_args()
    task_run_list = [[False, lambda: startfile('.')] if g_args.option == 'open' else None,
                     [False, lambda: [print(template_file_path.stem) for template_file_path in TEMPLATE_DIR.glob(f'{g_args.list}.py')]] if g_args.list else None,
                     # <- add your own function
                     ]
    for leave_flag, func in [task_list for task_list in task_run_list if task_list]:
        func()
        if leave_flag:
            exit(0)

    # CHECK POSITIONAL ARGUMENTS
    for attr_name, value in vars(g_args).items():
        if attr_name.startswith('-') or value is not None:
            continue
        system('cls')
        print(f'error required values of {red_dc(attr_name)} is None')
        print(f"if you need help, please use help command to help you: {red_dc(f'python {__file__} -h')}")
        exit(-1)
    main(g_args)

Where the class of FormatText is the following

class FormatText:
    __slots__ = ['align_list']

    def __init__(self, align_list: list, autoreset=True):
        """
        USAGE::

            format_text = FormatText([(20, '<'), (60, '<')])
            red_dc = format_text.new_dc(fore_color=Fore.RED)
            print(red_dc(['column 1', 'column 2']))
            print(red_dc('good morning'))
        :param align_list:
        :param autoreset:
        """
        self.align_list = align_list
        colorama.init(autoreset=autoreset)

    def __call__(self, text_list: list):
        if len(text_list) != len(self.align_list):
            if isinstance(text_list, str):
                return text_list
            raise AttributeError
        return ' '.join(f'{txt:{flag}{int_align}}' for txt, (int_align, flag) in zip(text_list, self.align_list))

    def new_dc(self, fore_color: Fore = Fore.GREEN, back_color: Back = ""):  # DECORATOR
        """create a device context"""
        def wrap(msgs):
            return back_color + fore_color + self(msgs) + Fore.RESET
        return wrap

The following python 3 formatter appends the default value if one exists and preserves line lengths.

from argparse import ArgumentParser, ArgumentDefaultsHelpFormatter, \ 
                     RawTextHelpFormatter
import textwrap

class CustomArgumentFormatter(ArgumentDefaultsHelpFormatter, RawTextHelpFormatter):
    """Formats argument help which maintains line length restrictions as well as appends default value if present."""

    def _split_lines(self, text, width):
        text = super()._split_lines(text, width)
        new_text = []

        # loop through all the lines to create the correct wrapping for each line segment.
        for line in text:
            if not line:
                # this would be a new line.
                new_text.append(line)
                continue

            # wrap the line's help segment which preserves new lines but ensures line lengths are
            # honored
            new_text.extend(textwrap.wrap(line, width))

        return new_text

Then create your argument parser with your new formatter:

my_arg_parser = ArgumentParser(formatter_class=CustomArgumentFormatter)
# ... add your arguments ...
print(my_arg_parser.format_help())

I came here looking for way to get the behavior of ArgumentDefaultsHelpFormatter but with newlines and tabs honored. Troy's code code got me close, but the final result ended up being a bit simpler:

class CustomArgumentFormatter(argparse.ArgumentDefaultsHelpFormatter):
    """
    Formats help text to honor newlines and tabs (and show default values).
    """

    # Match multiples of regular spaces only.
    _SPACE_MATCHER = re.compile(r' +', re.ASCII)

    def _split_lines(self, text, width):
        new_text = []
        for line in text.splitlines():
          # For each newline in the help message, replace any multiples of
          # whitespaces (due to indentation in source code) with one space.
          line = self._SPACE_MATCHER.sub(' ', line).rstrip()
          # Fit the line length to the console width
          new_text.extend(textwrap.wrap(line, width))
        return new_text

Then newlines and tabs will appear as intended:

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(formatter_class=CustomArgumentFormatter)

parser.add_argument(
    '--ethernet_config', type=str, required=False, default=None,
    help='Path to a text file that specifies Ethernet network IP settings \
      to use on the board. For example: \
      \n\t ip=192.0.2.100 \
      \n\t subnet_mask=255.255.255.0 \
      \n\t gateway=192.0.2.1')