Title: Hard Returns not working
Last modified: August 19, 2016

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# Hard Returns not working

 *  [ajdesertquail](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ajdesertquail/)
 * (@ajdesertquail)
 * [17 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/hard-returns-not-working/)
 * How do you get the hard returns (
   ) to work? Very frustrated when trying to edit
   our webpage. Thanks!

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

 *  [iridiax](https://wordpress.org/support/users/iridiax/)
 * (@iridiax)
 * [17 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/hard-returns-not-working/#post-851451)
 * When typing in text in WordPress, a single return creates a line break `<br /
   >`, a double return creates a new paragraph `<p>`. Unlike with an offline word
   processor like MS Word, multiple paragraphs or line breaks should not be used
   on the web to increase the spacing between blocks of text. WordPress just strips
   them out. Instead, paragraph and line spacing should be adjusted with css.
 * Unfortunately, some WordPress themes have styled their paragraphs to have _zero_
   space between them, resulting in squished paragraphs and users struggling to 
   increase spacing with multiple returns.
 * A quick code cheat that can work to add an extra empty line is to use:
 * `<p>&nbsp;</p>`
 * But the best solution is to either switch themes or edit the theme’s css.
 *  [primebrit](https://wordpress.org/support/users/primebrit/)
 * (@primebrit)
 * [17 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/hard-returns-not-working/#post-851797)
 * Wow… I can’t tell you how stressed I have been with this! THIS is the answer 
   I was looking for. Thank you soooo much!
 *  [niknah](https://wordpress.org/support/users/niknah/)
 * (@niknah)
 * [17 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/hard-returns-not-working/#post-851841)
 * Thanks for the nbsp trick! This pissed me off for a while too. I don’t mind if
   the visual editor does whatever to help dumbies but I thought the html editor
   would print what I had entered as html.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

The topic ‘Hard Returns not working’ is closed to new replies.

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 3 replies
 * 4 participants
 * Last reply from: [niknah](https://wordpress.org/support/users/niknah/)
 * Last activity: [17 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/hard-returns-not-working/#post-851841)
 * Status: not resolved

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