Hi Conor,
Welcome to the LaTeX community.
Without a
minimal working example (if you don't know what that is please follow the link) it is hard to say what happens and why. So, here are a few remarks to paragraph building and the usage of
\\ and
\newline, resp.
A paragraph is everything between two
empty lines:
Code: Select all
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
This is a first paragraph that is supposed to span at least two lines. That's
why I'm gonna add a few more words.
This is the second paragraph that is supposed to span at least two lines. That's
why I'm gonna add a few more words.
\end{document}
An empty line is treated by LaTeX equivalently to the insertion of
\par. Indeed, it inserts a
\par then implicitly. The following is equivalent to the first example:
Code: Select all
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
This is a first paragraph that is supposed to span at least two lines. That's
why I'm gonna add a few more words.\par
This is the second paragraph that is supposed to span at least two lines. That's
why I'm gonna add a few more words.
\end{document}
A
\newline or
\\ does
not end a paragraph!
Code: Select all
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
This is a first paragraph that is supposed to span at least two lines. That's
why I'm gonna add a few more words.\newline
This is still the same paragraph that is supposed to span at least two lines.
That's why I'm gonna add a few more words.
\end{document}
So
\newline is not supposed to be used to end a paragraph and start a new one.
The distance between paragraphs is determined by a length called
\parskip and is
0.0pt plus 1.0pt as a default. That means it is zero but may be stretched up to
1.0pt if necessary. If you have bigger gaps you're doing something differently. Are you adding a
\newpage somewhere and have figures or tables on the page where this happens? Or... So, in order to help you, please provide a
minimal working example.
Regards
