As far as I know, \\
and \newline
both insert a new line. But they do not have an identical expansion and tracing shows they do not execute the same commands, so what is their difference?
[Tex/LaTex] the difference between \newline and \\
line-breaking
Best Answer
From a usage point-of-view, there is a difference between
\\
and\newline
:\\
Tells LaTeX to start a new line. This command has a starred version and takes an optional parameter:
\\*
: Similar to\\
but also tells LaTeX not to start a new page after the line by issuing a\nobreak
.\\[<len>]
: This specifies the vertical space<len>
to be inserted before the next line. Can also be negative.The above two can also be mixed. That is, using both a starred + optional argument combination
\\*[<len>]
.\newline
Similar to
\\
.From a technical point of view (in
latex.ltx
), these commands are defined as follows, justifying the similarity between\\
(unstarred and without optional argument) and\newline
:LaTeX also redefines
\\
to mean other things depending on the environment(s) you use. For example, within anarray
ortabular
environment, the commonly-used\\
has a slightly different meaning to when it is used in regular text.