Microsoft Word belongs to Microsoft 365 and significantly simplifies the workday for those that work with text-based documents on a regular basis. One of the reasons for its popularity is its variety of options for formatting text. One thing that’s especially practical is the fact that Word automatically takes care of many of these formatting challenges. Among these is the insertion of an automatic link break in Word when a word goes beyond a provided line length.
In many cases it can make sense to insert a line break manually to improve the document’s overall structure. We’ll explain the differences between a soft and a hard line break (also called a return) and how you can apply both types of line breaks to structure your document. Do you work with Microsoft Word regularly? Our guide provides many more helpful articles on topics like Word macros and instructions on how to combine Word documents.
Contents
- What is a line break?
- How do you insert a line break in Word?
- Example: manual line break in Word with bullet points
- Example: manual line break in Word with justified paragraphs
- Making line breaks visible in Word
What is a line break?
The text editing program Microsoft Word offers lots of options when it comes to formatting text: such as defining the font size, line spacing, and text alignment. In addition, there are so-called spacing settings, such as the space before and after a paragraph. To start a new line within a paragraph, you can insert a line break in Word. This lets you jump to the next line, without having to change the set paragraph formatting or starting a new bullet point.
How do you insert a line break in Word?
By pressing the Enter key, you can achieve a hard return and start a new paragraph in Microsoft Word. This is probably the most used break. One that’s less common, though, is the manual line break in Word, which can be achieved by pressing down the right key combination. Using the Enter + Shift keys generates a so-called soft return. In doing so, you move to the next line while maintaining the defined formatting.
Tip
The key combination also works in other common text editing programs, as well as on different internet sites that have text and format fields.
Example: manual line break in Word with bullet points
Bullet points are a popular means of clearly structuring long sections of text and summarizing related information into a single point. However, a clear structure is also recommended within a bullet point, especially if a point covers several lines. With a manual line break in Word, a section can be clearly structured with breaks and blank lines. In this example, those places where manual line breaks are inserted are marked. Only in the case of a hard return or a new paragraph is a new bullet point inserted.
Example: manual line break in Word with justified paragraphs
If you are justifying text in Word, then you’re probably very familiar with the following problem: when you insert a manual line break at the end of a paragraph, Word stretches the last sentence over the entire width of the page. Due to the wide spacing, the text looks “patchy” and is difficult to read.
Luckily, this problem can be easily avoided. At the end of the sentence, press the Tab key and then then insert the manual line break in Word by using the key combination [Enter] + [Shift]. This will avoid Word from stretching out the sentence.
Making line breaks visible in Word
Formatting options such as font size or font color are obvious in a document. In contrast, it’s not immediately apparent whether a hard or soft return has been inserted in Word. For this purpose, the word processing program offers a practical function to highlight this kind of “invisible” formatting. To do this, activate the formatting characters.
Select the “Start” tab from the main menu and click the “¶” symbol in the “Paragraph” section. Alternatively, the function can also be activated or deactivated with the key combination [CTRL] + [Shift] + [+]. Up to version 2003 in Word, the feature to activate paragraph formatting characters is located on the standard toolbar. After clicking on it, Word marks all inserted line breaks as follows:
- The ¶ symbol marks all hard returns or paragraphs.
- A corner arrow marks a soft return in Word.
It’s not necessary to deactivate this function before printing a document since the formatting characters – as displayed on the print preview – are not printed on the final document.
Besides Microsoft Word there are also other programs like PowerPoint and Excel that are a part of Microsoft 365. Our Digital Guide is packed full of articles on topics like line breaks in PowerPoint and wrapping text in Excel.
Tip
With Microsoft 365 you’ll have access to the entire suite of Office programs, including Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel und Outlook.
Wrapping text in Excel: How to display the contents of your Excel cells on multiple lines
Excel cells often contain only a few numerical values or short text. But when you’re dealing with lengthy contents, the Microsoft application often hides a portion of the information. You can prevent this by wrapping text, which Excel allows you to do in two different ways. In this article, you’ll learn everything you need to know about this feature.
Wrapping text in Excel: How to display the contents of your Excel cells on multiple lines
How to change line spacing in Word easily
The default settings for Microsoft Word line spacing are not always enough. Fortunately, the software offers several options for customizing your documents. Unfortunately, these options are often hard to find. For example, if you want to change the line spacing in Word, you might have to search for this. We’ll help you find this feature so you can learn how to double-space in Word and more.
How to change line spacing in Word easily
Word table: Creating a table in Microsoft Word
In Word, tables prove useful in the most diverse situations, and you have several options for creating them. You can either use the table templates provided by the Microsoft tool, or you can design your own. This enables you to improve your reports, invoices or the performance of household tasks. Even data from Excel can be integrated as a table into a Word file.
Word table: Creating a table in Microsoft Word
How to turn spell check on and off in Word
In this guide, you’ll learn how to turn spell check on and off in Word. If you want to check your spelling in Word, you can set the application to automatically display misspelled words and grammatical errors. Word can also suggest corrections, which you can accept or ignore. You can show or hide these highlighted errors at any time.
How to turn spell check on and off in Word
Word for Microsoft 365 Outlook for Microsoft 365 Word 2021 Outlook 2021 Word 2019 Outlook 2019 Word 2016 Outlook 2016 Word 2013 Outlook 2013 Word 2010 Outlook 2010 Word Starter 2010 More…Less
You can control where Word and Outlook position automatic page breaks by setting pagination options.
Keep lines of a paragraph together on a page or in a column
-
Select the paragraphs that contain lines you want to keep together.
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On the Home tab in Word, or on the FORMAT TEXT tab in an Outlook email, select the Paragraph Dialog Box launcher
. -
Select the Line and Page Breaks tab.
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Under Pagination, select Keep lines together.
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Select OK.
.Keep paragraphs together on a page or in a column
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Select the paragraphs you want to keep together on a page.
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On the Home tab in Word, or on the FORMAT TEXT tab in an Outlook email, select the Paragraph Dialog Box launcher
. -
Select the Line and Page Breaks tab.
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Under Pagination, select Keep with next.
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Select OK.
Always force a page break before a paragraph
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Select the paragraph that you want to follow the page break.
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On the Home tab in Word, or on the FORMAT TEXT tab in an Outlook email, select the Paragraph Dialog Box launcher
. -
Select the Line and Page Breaks tab.
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Under Pagination, select Page break before.
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Select OK.
Control widow and orphan lines
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Select the paragraphs in which you want to control widows and orphans.
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On the Home tab in Word, or on the FORMAT TEXT tab in an Outlook email, select the Paragraph Dialog Box launcher
. -
Select the Line and Page Breaks tab.
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Under Pagination, select Widow/Orphan control.
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Select OK.
Note: This option is turned on by default.
Suppress line numbers from a paragraph or paragraphs
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Select the paragraph or paragraphs.
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On the Home tab in Word, or on the FORMAT TEXT tab in an Outlook email, select the Paragraph Dialog Box launcher
. -
Select the Line and Page Breaks tab.
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Under Formatting, select Suppress line numbers.
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Select OK.
Remove hyphens from a paragraph or paragraphs
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Select the paragraph or paragraphs.
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On the Home tab in Word, or on the FORMAT TEXT tab in an Outlook email, select the Paragraph Dialog Box launcher
. -
Select the Line and Page Breaks tab.
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Under Formatting, select Don’t hyphenate.
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Select OK.
Text box options
You can use the text box options to more tightly wrap the text that surrounds the text box. To use these options, the text box border must be transparent (no line and no fill), and the Wrap Text must be set at Tight or Through.
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Inside the text box, right-click, and then select Paragraph.
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Select the Line and Page Breaks tab.
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Under Textbox options, in the Tight wrap list, select one of the following:
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All
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First and Last Lines
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First Line Only
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Last Line Only
Note: To undo changes, select None.
-
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Select OK.
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Occasionally text in paragraphs is not aligned correctly or cannot be positioned as you like. This problem could be a line break, also called soft return or text wrapping break.
A paragraph is created by entering text and pressing the Enter key. It can contain only one word or one sentence, or multiple sentences. Each paragraph ends with a paragraph mark that looks like a reverse P (¶).
The line break moves the next word to the beginning of a new line without starting a new paragraph. A line break character looks like a right-angle arrow pointing to the left 
.
For example:
- Text with two paragraphs where lines end with paragraph breaks:
- Text with two paragraphs where lines end with line breaks:
Note: You can also see a right-angle arrow between two vertical lines 
. This symbol shows the line break that separate text around an object, wrapping text such as a caption text or an image from the body text:
A line break character and other structural characters, such as spaces, paragraph marks, and tabs (also known as Whitespace characters in typography, nonprinting characters, or formatting marks) are usually hidden, but you can display them.
To insert a line break, do the following:
1. Position the cursor in front of the word you want to move to a new line.
2. Do one of the following:
- On the Layout tab, in the Page Setup group, click Breaks, and then click Text Wrapping:
- Press Shift+Enter.
Line breaks are used to delimit a specific text or break a line before a word that would otherwise be hyphenated (see more about automatic hyphenation and manual hyphenation).
To remove line breaks, follow the two-step procedure:
I. Replace two consecutive line breaks with one paragraph break:
1. Open the Find and Replace dialog box by doing one of the following:
- On the Home tab, in the Editing group, click the Find list and then choose Advanced Find…:
- Click Ctrl+H.
- On the Home tab, in the Editing group, click the Replace button:
2. In the Find and Replace dialog box, on the Replace tab:
- In the Find what field, type ^l^l (the caret symbol plus the lowercase Ls twice).
- In the Replace with field, type ^p (the code for a paragraph break).
3. Click the Replace All button.
II. Replace line breaks with spaces or remove them:
1. Open the Find and Replace dialog box.
2. In the Find and Replace dialog box, on the Replace tab:
- In the Find what field, type ^l (the caret symbol plus the lowercase Ls).
- In the Replace with field:
- Type a space if you need to place a space instead of each line break.
- Leave empty if you already have a space at the end of each line.
3. Click the Replace All button.
See more about replacing special characters.
Note: Word offers a helpful feature named AutoFormat that can format selected text with a paragraph break at the end of each full line to delete all the paragraph breaks but the last. In some cases, it can determine where the “real” paragraph breaks are and leave them intact. To run AutoFormat, click Alt+Ctrl+K.
In this article, you will learn about a very important topic related to paragraph formatting, such as page breaks, paragraph, line, and column breaks in a Word document.
Table of Contents
- Page Break in MS Word:
- Steps:
- Paragraph Break in MS Word:
- Break a Line in MS Word:
- Steps:
- Break a Column in MS Word:
- Steps:
When a new page is started or an additional page is added to the next from the current page, this is referred to as a “page break.” (Also, you can move the paragraphs to the next page from the current one.)
Steps:
To break the page of any content and move to the next page, you have to click at the beginning of the relevant content or click on that page to add another page under a page.
Then strike (press) the Ctrl + Enter.
Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl + Enter
Paragraph Break in MS Word:
Splitting one Paragraph into two paragraphs is called the Paragraph Break.
Keep some text you want
Position the cursor at the beginning of the line in a paragraph that you want to break
Then strike (press) the Enter key.
Keyboard Shortcut: Enter.
Break a Line in MS Word:
It breaks one line of the paragraph into two lines in the Word document.
Steps:
Keep some text you want
Position the cursor at the beginning of a line in a paragraph that you want to break
Then strike (press) the Shift + Enter.
Keyboard Shortcut: Shift + Enter.
Break a Column in MS Word:
Breaks a column from the current left position to the right. To break a column, you should split the text into two, three, left, or right columns.
Steps:
Keep some text you want
Change the text/paragraph into 2 or more columns.
To change the paragraph into the column. Go to the Layout tab, click on the column, and then select one of the column options.
Now, position the cursor at the beginning of the line in the left column that you want to break
Then strike (press) the Shift + Ctrl + Enter.
Keyboard Shortcut: Shift + Ctrl + Enter.
What is the shortcut for Page Break in MS Word?
To start a new page from the current position or Move a Paragraph from the current page to the next page, Strike the Ctrl + Enter
What is the shortcut for Paragraph Breaks in MS Word?
To split one Paragraph into two or more two paragraphs, Strike the Enter Key.
What is the shortcut to break a line in MS Word?
To break one line of the paragraph into two or more than two lines or Sentences in the word document, Strike the Shift + Enter.
What is the shortcut for break a column in MS Word?
To break any column from the current left column position to the right. Strike the Shift + Ctrl + Enter.
To start a new line within a paragraph, you can insert a line break in Word. This lets you jump to the next line, without having to change the set paragraph formatting or starting a new bullet point.
How do you insert a new line in a comment?
2 Answers. To add a newline, simply type Shift + Enter . This will insert a newline character (thus making a new line) rather than enter, which causes the form to submit.
What is a line break look like?
A single break that returns the cursor to the next line and does not create a new paragraph. In other programs, the shortcut key to create a line break is Shift + Enter . With format marks enabled, line breaks are represented by the symbol of an arrow pointing down and to the left (shown right).
How do I add a new line in stackoverflow?
Starting a new line in SO topic comments [duplicate] A new line can be started in a question text box by double enter or double space.
How do you do a line break on Facebook?
Type the first line of your comment or status update. When you’re ready to format the line break, hold down the “Shift” button on your keyboard and press “Enter.” Let go of the “Shift” button when you’re finished. The line break is created and you can continue typing out the next line of your comment or status update.
How do you insert a line break in Word 2016?
Insert the line break. Hit the key combination Shift + Enter to create a line break. You will now be able to add content in the line right after the break. Notice that the cursor will not situate itself in the blank space where the break is when you click on the space. This is the line break.
How to make a new line after a paragraph?
– TeX – LaTeX Stack Exchange Closed 9 years ago. paragraph style – how to force line break? \paragraph {} \\ – make paragraph a header? I have the following problem. I have a paragraph and only after this single paragraph environemnt I want to have the text following in a new line. So the original source looks like this here:
Can you add extra lines to a paragraph in HTML?
Large or small screens, and resized windows will create different results. With HTML, you cannot change the output by adding extra spaces or extra lines in your HTML code. The browser will remove any extra spaces and extra lines when the page is displayed: ignores it. ignores it. This is a paragraph. This is another paragraph.
How to add a new line between words in CSS?
Line 1. Line 2. That is – to add a new line between the words. I have tried but it does not work. How could this be accomplished? Edit: The string is received from a server. Set CSS-Style for the paragraph as below, it will break line on and wrap text according to parent width.
How do you enter a new line in HTML?
To use this shortcut, move to the text cursor to where you want the new line to begin. Then, press and hold the Shift key, and press the Enter key. If this keyboard shortcut does not work, it is likely only possible to enter a new line by manually inserting a line break (” ” tag) in the document’s HTML code.