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In most basic courses of latex, they say that to separate two block of texts, you need to use \\ at the end of the first one. Anyway, this seems to be a bad practice according to lot of people (see this for example).

Actually, I have:

  • guides and tutorial that say how to use \\ caring about nothing
  • people around that say "don't use this please!", but often no motivation is given.

I would like to have a good and definitive answer, hoping that this could help also other users.

When am I meant to use \\?

What are the problems using \\?

Why does \\ exist even if it is discouraged and leads to problems?

Thanks a lot!

Community
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the_candyman
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    Those basic courses are telling a lie. Paragraphs should always be separated by a blank line. – egreg Apr 27 '15 at 21:43
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    Is simple: Use \ where you want a new line (\newline) . Do not use \ where you want a paragraph (\par). Use a blank line where you want a \par. Do not confuse a \newline with a \par. Sometimes they seem to do the same, but it is not true. For instance, compare both with or without \parskip3em in the preamble. – Fran Apr 27 '15 at 22:14
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    where are these "tutorials" can they be corrected? – David Carlisle Apr 27 '15 at 22:14
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    In addition to @Fran 's comment: you should never* want a new line in ordinary body text, and you should very rarely want one at all outside of tabular/array environments and similar. [* Not ever for all practical purposes. Incredibly seldom. So rarely that you could spend years using LaTeX and never find yourself with such a desire.] – cfr Apr 28 '15 at 01:41
  • ok, maybe I got it. But what if I want a blank line between two pieces of text without having a lot of troubles? – the_candyman Apr 28 '15 at 20:00

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