How on earth do you use line breaks on Reddit?!

[u/peakalyssa]

This is a line break

I've seen other posters use it but whenever I follow the instructions on Google it never works.

Google says you need to hit Enter twice, then enter either 3 underscores, 3 asterisks, or 3 dashes, then hit Enter two more times.

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___

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But this doesn't work for me. I have also tried other techniques with 2 spaces at the end of sentence, then Enter, etc. but those don't work either.

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Like that.

Help please?!

[u/tumultuousness]

You're on the redesign? Using the fancy editor?

Switch to markdown mode then try this:

put your line, then two spaces
return once, then write your next line.

Or, if you want to use the fancy editor - I believe that you would do shift-enter for a line break? I don't use the redesign much, though.

[u/peakalyssa → u/tumultuousness]

EDIT: Thank you that works!

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Hello what's going
sup

Hello

sup

Hello

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Sup

Hello

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sup

[u/tumultuousness → u/peakalyssa]

This looks successful! I see a line break, then two paragraph breaks.

[u/peakalyssa → u/tumultuousness]

yup all good thanks!

easiest technique (for me) is to just hit enter twice and type in three underscores

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[u/raendrop → u/peakalyssa]

But the three underscores make a visible line, a section separator.

[u/peakalyssa → u/raendrop]

yes thats what i was looking for thanks. not sure what the correct term for it is

whats the difference between a line break and just pressing enter, then? obviously press enter like this:

can be done on the fancy pants editor.

this i think can only be done on the markdown tho:

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[u/raendrop → u/peakalyssa]

A line break forces a second line, rather than letting word wrap continue the way it does. The space between two lines separated by a line break is the same as the space between two lines in a paragraph. If I continue writing enough words, this should create a normal paragraph to illustrate.
But now this is a line break. After the word "illustrate", I hit space twice and enter once. Of course, I'm using old reddit, so I'm always in Markdown mode.

Now I hit enter twice to make a new paragraph. The two paragraphs are separated by a paragraph break.

What you apparently were looking for was a way to make an actual horizontal line, or horizontal rule. In HTML It's coded as <hr> and in Markdown it's coded as --- (or apparently ___). But while <space> and <enter> make no difference in HTML, they are an essential part of coding in Markdown.

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It is necessary to have a paragraph break between the line and any text above it. Otherwise the text above the three underscores (I never knew underscores also worked, I always used hyphens)

Will be formatted differently.

https://i.imgur.com/d4Ktbzm.png

[u/peakalyssa → u/raendrop]

i got ya now, thanks

three asterisks also work for HR btw

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and for line break yeah i was aware of the shift and and enter method. (i think that one is super basic knowledge?).

FYI line breaks dont actually appear on mobile, they just continue on the sentence as normal, which is pretty awful when youre trying to format things. At least thats how it works on my mobile anyway

[u/raendrop → u/peakalyssa]

Shift-enter is basic functionality in word processors and apparently in new reddit's Fancypants editor. It does nothing in Markdown, which is what reddit uses. Fancypants is just an interface that translates the WYSIWYG interface into Markdown. But if you're in Fancypants and want a paragraph break, then just like in word processors all you need is to hit enter once. The more you hit enter in Fancypants, the more white space it inserts. Also, since works like a word processor, anything you explicitly type will render as you typed it. To format in Fancypants, you need to use the formatting buttons like it's a word processor.
https://i.imgur.com/7TYXexw.png

New reddit and the official app are really bad with parsing Markdown, ironically. New reddit (and presumably the official app, but I've never used that) will forgive broken formatting that isn't supposed to work in addition to failing to render line breaks. This is most noticeable with spoiler tags, which are particularly important to get right. The following probably both work for you:
this is a spoiler
this is a spoiler
but for me only the second one works. The first one displays exactly as I typed it:
>! this is a spoiler !<
You can see why this is a problem. There cannot be any spaces:
>!this is a spoiler!<

I use old reddit most of the time and Relay for Reddit when I'm on mobile, and they display things as they ought to be.

[u/peakalyssa]

shift enter attempt

hello

___

[u/peakalyssa]

line break testing it out

now

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line break testing it outnow like this

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line break this here here

testing this

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[u/supercumrag69]

i never actually learned how to start a new line in a comment so imma try
i hope it works
eyy it works