Line breaks

A break in the source is not one on the page

First line
Second line

First line Second line

Both lines form one paragraph. That is the behaviour of standard Markdown: a single break in the source counts as a space, and the text flows.

That matters for notes that are written wrapped in the editor — like every page of this site. They are wrapped at column 100 so that they can be read and compared; none of that is visible on the page.

Paragraph

A paragraph.
 
A second paragraph, separated by a blank line.

A paragraph.

A second paragraph, separated by a blank line.

That is the usual way. Where a break is needed semantically, a paragraph is usually what is meant.

Forcing a break

For the cases where a break really does belong inside a paragraph — an address, a verse, a line in a form:

First line<br>Second line

First line
Second line

Or with two spaces at the end of the line, which is invisible in the source and therefore easily lost.

The switch behind it

The Hard line breaks plugin reverses this rule: with it, every break in the source becomes a break on the page. Obsidian itself behaves that way, which makes the switch tempting.

This template leaves it off

Measured before it was switched off: nine forced breaks on a single page, every one of them in the middle of a sentence. Anyone who wraps their notes in the editor — and almost everyone writing long texts does — gets chopped-up body text with the plugin.

Anyone writing line by line (lists, verse, short lines) who really means the break switches it back on in QuartzControl under Plugins.