What is the best way to add new lines and new paragraphs in LaTeX?

I'm currently writing a report where I write new paragraphs like this:

I like sharks, sharks are cool. Also bears are really cool. 

Which basically has one completely empty line between then. In order to create a new paragraph I use the "\" code:

I like sharks, sharks are cool. \\ Also bears are really cool. 

However this generates "Underfull \hbox (badness 10000)" error. What is the correct way of starting a new paragraph?

4 Answers

use \par after the line of code you want there to be a new paragraph after

I like sharks, sharks are cool. \par Also bears are really cool. 

If your looking for line breaks go here

You have several options

\\ (two backslashes) \newline \hfill \break \vspace{5mm} Inserts a vertical spaces whose length is 5mm. Other LATEX units can be used with this command. \vfill Inserts a blank space that will stretch accordingly to fill the vertical space available. That's why the line "Text at the bottom of the page." is moved to the bottom, and the rest of the space is filled in. \smallskip Adds a 3pt space plus or minus 1pt depending on other factors (document type, available space, etc) \medskip Adds a 6pt space plus or minus 2pt depending on other factors (document type, available space, etc) \bigskip Adds a 12pt space plus or minus 4pt depending on other factors (document type, available space, etc) 

Not sure if it's best practice, but I would use:

I like sharks, sharks are cool. \newline Also bears are really cool. 

\newline followed by an empty line will give you the space between the two lines.

I just put a blank line in between.

I like sharks, sharks are cool. Also bears are really cool. 

I wouldn't worry about an underfull \hbox warning though. You probably have better things to do than try to make all of LaTeX's warnings go away.

I would also take a look at \paragraph{} command, that may provide paragraph heading too.