A single newline has no effect on the layout. lines can be as long or as short as you like the browser will wrap automatically. But an empty line starts a new paragraph.

A single newline has no effect on the layout. lines can be as long or as short as you like the browser will wrap automatically.

But an empty line starts a new paragraph.

Line breaks can be forced \\ with double-backslash at an end of line or anywhere else with\\ whitespace following. extraneous whitespace is ignored however. Extra blank lines between paragraphs are ignored.

Line breaks can be forced
with double-backslash at an end of line or anywhere else with
whitespace following. extraneous whitespace is ignored however.

Extra blank lines between paragraphs are ignored.

Notes

Whitespace is reduced to a single space - consecutive spaces, carrage returns and tabs are reduced to a single space in most cases (your site designer may have a trick available to allow whitespace (like we have in these examples)

Headings, lists, tables etc immediatley after a paragraph cause the paragraph to finish - even if there is no blank line.