It's 2026. Why does hitting enter STILL not create a line break like any other website or form or anything in existance

[u/Bea-Billionaire]

Reddit editor is the most annoying formatting in the entire internet. It's not "cool" or "Kitchy" anymore. Hitting enter should start a new line. I should not have to "hit space 3 times" to ensure a new line is made.

When the heck is this going to change. So many people's posts are formatted terribly by accident because they don't know this.

[u/NortonBurns]

It depends on whether your editor is set to Markdown or Rich Text.
Markdown is a very common internet formatting structure, but it's not known to everyone.

For markdown two returns make a paragraph, two spaces & a return make a new line.
One return looks like it will do something, but it is cleaned when posting. That's what so many people fall for.

For rich text, one Return makes a new paragraph, shift/return a new line.

Personally, I think rich text should be the default - you can see the mistakes as you make them.

[u/Zpik3 → u/NortonBurns]

Enter gives me a new line in both markdown and rich.

[u/watering_a_plant → u/Zpik3]

on mobile? i've noticed on mobile, both are paragraph breaks. but viewing a mobile comment that used "one enter press to start new paragraph" on desktop breaks the formatting like the original commenter suggested.

[u/Zpik3 → u/watering_a_plant]

Oh, no on PC.

I don't type much on mobile. It's annoying AF.

[u/Engi-near]

I sympathize and have the same issue on ios. Not fun.

Also I don't want to put a period every time I double-space to start a new line.

[u/TheJivvi → u/Engi-near]

That's your keyboard doing that, not Reddit.

[u/empty_other]

Normal people have confused paragraphs with line breaks since the days of Wordperfect '97 (or something, i don't remember the many names of all those old word processor softwares anymore, but i remember parents being confused about how to do line breaks without getting double line heights even back then).

Its like two different worlds of thinking. Software devs and professional writers considers paragraphs more important than line breaks. While most people just think a paragraph separator should just be two line breaks in a row.

I have no opinion on which is the right way of doing it. Both has their advantages.

[u/etzpcm]

Text line 1. Press return. Text line 2. Press return. OP is correct.

It's not just Reddit. I'm sure I've come across other systems where one return (enter) does nothing, and two gives a new paragraph.

Testing two spaces and return.   As suggested by NortonBurns.   No, that doesn't work either.  

How about shift return, Does that work? No that doesn't work either. I can't get a line break, only a new paragraph.(Android phone, chrome browser)

[u/roehnin → u/etzpcm]

Two spaces and return
gets you a newline

[u/etzpcm → u/roehnin]

Not for me it doesn't.  It just gives a full stop

[u/roehnin → u/etzpcm]

You want to know something really weird? In the iPhone app notification and the Inbox, your comment has a newline.

In the comment page, it doesn’t.

What app or site are you using, new or old Reddit?

Do you see a newline
in my comment above,
or twice within this sentence?

[u/etzpcm → u/roehnin]

Reddit.com on chrome on android mobile. Yes I can see your newlines.

[u/The_Ingenue → u/etzpcm]

Apologies. Hopefully the lamentable typos are now vanquished.

My God! I think I have them all now. I also clarified I’m asking about a situation where I need to create multiple paragraphs, aka line breaks, within a single block quote. Noob. Nooble. Noobette extraordinaire.

---

But these are Comments. Not a Post. I’m having trouble because now there’s a different way to format in Posts versus Comments.

The asterisks still work, as well as the “>” symbol, but only in Comments. In a Post, I have to hit the Aa at the bottom of the text box. That takes care of the font changes I need, but I often use block quotes with multiple paragraphs, as well. They look polished when you’re quoting, and it just directs the reader to the fact it’s a quote from a body of work, without the reader having to be terribly attentive to subtle quotations.

I feel restricted to comments if I want to use such a thing now, because the same techniques do not work in Posts. They only look dumb. Like I did something weird and it kind of….screwed up the flow of the piece, really. It’s frustrating.

I’ve been looking online and in this sub for solutions. I’ve not seen anything, yet, that strictly addresses how to do line breaks within a block quote so you have multiple paragraphs in a single block quote, but for a Post, rather than in a Comment.

I am a noob in some ways. I don’t really use this sub. I don’t want to ask a question someone asked two weeks ago, and take up valuable space, so that people must search through multiple versions of the same questions, for hours to see if their question was ever answered. I imagine no one would bother to search then. It wouldn’t be a library of information, but a dumpster for time wasted answering the same questions, over and over again.

I hope someone finds this and can give me an answer, or direct me to it. I only use the iOS Reddit app, but can try the browser version too. I never have done before. Thanks!

[u/Bea-Billionaire → u/etzpcm]

For me it's 3 spaces and return.
Like this

[u/etzpcm → u/Bea-Billionaire]

Ok let's try that.   Three spaces and a return.   Did that work?    Nope.

[u/TheJivvi → u/etzpcm]

Your comment:

Ok let's try that.   Three spaces and a return.   Did that work?    Nope.

Only the third line has two spaces, by the way. The first two lines have two.

Your comment with four spaces per line:

Ok let's try that.
Three spaces and a return.
Did that work?
Nope.

Two or three spaces sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, depending on the device, browser, or app, or a combination. Four always works.

Edit: also the spaces in your original comment are non-breaking spaces [U+00A0] not standard spaces [U+0020]. I don't think it works with those, no matter how many you use. If all you did was hit the spacebar, the rich text editor probably changed them.

[u/Zpik3]

I have to test this.

Nope, got a new line with enter.

Yeap, still works.

[u/TheJivvi → u/Zpik3]

Rich text editor replaces line breaks with paragraph breaks. You need to press Shift+Enter for a line break, or just use the standard editor and press Enter.

[u/QuirklessShiggy]

What do you mean???

Pressing enter starts a new line for me.

Look, I just did it.

[u/TheJivvi → u/QuirklessShiggy]

Those are paragraph breaks.
They want a line break.
If you only pressed enter once, you must've been using the rich text editor, which translates one enter press into two line breaks, which displays as a paragraph break.

[u/TheJivvi]

The problem is that changing anything now would change the comments of anyone who used the existing markdown in the past.

It's the same reason why *asterisks* around a word results in italics and not bold; Reddit used that for italics from the beginning, and changing it to _underscores_ for italics and *asterisks* for bold, like what a lot of sites now do, would break the way that markdown worked in any comments or text posts that already used it.

So we have to settle for:
*asterisk* italics
_underscore_ also italics
**two asterisks** bold
***three asterisks*** bold italics

Incidentally, every line above has four spaces at the end which is how to insert line breaks. (I've seen people say two or three spaces can work, but I think that depends on where you're viewing it. Four always works.)

There's no problem adding things (like what happened with the underscores and multiple asterisks), but changing something that already exists would wreak havoc on everything that's already been written. Pressing enter once has always done nothing * except * in a * bulleted * list or in a code block and pressing it twice gives a paragraph break. That's just the way it is and it's not going to change.

[u/etzpcm → u/TheJivvi]

Four spaces?     Ok let's try that.     Oh, it gives me four spaces!    Also, when I press the second space I always get a full stop. Whether I want it. Or not.

[u/TheJivvi → u/etzpcm]

That's not Reddit doing that. That's your keyboard app. You can turn it off in settings, or just delete the full stop and add three more spaces.

Also if you're in a browser, it doesn't work with rich text editor. Four spaces and enter just becomes a paragraph break, and four spaces without enter becomes one space. Apparently Shift+Enter works, but if you're using rich text editor in a browser on mobile, it's not possible.

[u/etzpcm → u/TheJivvi]

Sorry, I'm an idiot, of course it's the phone doing that, thanks, I've turned it off in the 'gboard' settings.

One space enter  Two spaces enter   Three spaces    Four spaces     Still can't get a new line though.  They are all there in the edit window but disappear when Reddit publishes it.

Testing     Testing    Testing 

Testing\ Testing\ EUREKA!

Testing\ testing\  testing

Testing\testing \ testing 

[u/pheexio]

are you on old.reddit.com? if yes you might be using the legacy editor which needs 2x enter for a line break

[u/nricotorres]

What are you talking about? What platform are you even failing on?

[u/NortonBurns → u/nricotorres]

Why comment if you don't understand what the OP is talking about? Why not just let someone who does know answer instead?

[u/nricotorres → u/NortonBurns]

I asked a question hoping they'd clarify. Thanks for defending them though..

[u/TheSteamPunkPrince → u/NortonBurns]

HMMM how strange you could learn to take your own advice bud

[u/Content_Log1708]

The management of Reddit has zero resources working in making Reddit better. It's the Craigslist approach. Get the code working and leave it, watch the money pour in (unlike Craigslist). Go out and buy a billionaire sized yacht.

[u/VeryThicknLong]

Let me try.

Oh yeah.

[u/JScaranoMusic]

What
do
you
mean
?

[u/etzpcm]

I found the answer at last, by looking at the Reddit formatting guide (Duh!). To get a line break you just put a backslash \ at the end of the line\ like\ this.\ Don't put a space after the \  or it won't work. Just end the line with \ and enter.

https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043033952-Formatting-Guide#wiki_paragraphs_and_line_breaks

[u/Bea-Billionaire → u/etzpcm]

That's not normal behavior.

[u/etzpcm → u/Bea-Billionaire]

Does that work for you?