LaTeX line breaks.

Message

vdboor · Post by **vdboor** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 9:43 am

I've just started experimenting with LaTeX, and I was wondering:
does it matter if I use linebreaks in my paragraphs?
My tex file is stored in subversion, and using a new line for each sentense makes it easier to see the "svn diffs".

robbar · Post by **robbar** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 10:03 am

No, a single linebreak doesn't matter in LaTeX. You only get an new line in just in case:
- you use \newline
- or you have two adjacent linebreaks

TNorthover · Post by **TNorthover** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 10:05 am

Line breaks are fine in paragraphs. A new paragraph is started if there's a blank line between two others.

You can even sort of have one of those by putting a commend character ("%") on it, so for example:

Code: Select all

S1

S2

would be 2 paragraphs, but:

Code: Select all

S1
%
S2

would only be 1.

vdboor · Post by **vdboor** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 12:31 pm

thanks a lot

There was one thing I'm wondering about:

robbar wrote:No, a single linebreak doesn't matter in LaTeX. You only get an new line in just in case:
- you use \newline
- or you have two adjacent linebreaks

What is the difference between \newline and \\ ? (or \\\\)
thanks in advice.

TNorthover · Post by **TNorthover** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 3:10 pm

Well, \\\\ is 2 new lines.

None of those forms start a new paragraph (so no indentation).

As to the difference, it looks like the \\ form can accept an argument of the amount of space to put between the lines, so \\[10cm] would give a 10cm gap. The \newline form can't do that.

There's also an extra \\* form which supresses page breaks.

vandorp · Post by **vandorp** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 7:20 am

I would take a look at this manual:

http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/info/ls ... lshort.pdf

It's a very good read, exactly what you need to know. It's a good introduction but I use it as a reference as well. The stuff you ask is in there as well.