Robin Williams Mac OS X Book, Jaguar Edition, The

When to Use the Return Key

A word wrap is sometimes called a soft Return (although technically it isn’t).

For typewriter users: The Return key is the equivalent of the carriage return on a typewriter.

Word wrap: In a word processor, you should never hit the Return key at the end of your line unless it is the end of the paragraph or unless you really do want the line to end there, as in an address. This is because word processors word wrap—when the words get close to the right margin, they just wrap themselves around onto the next line. Why is that? Well...

Hard Return: When you press the Return key you insert what is called a hard Return that tells the computer to always stop the line at that point. So if you change your margins, your line ...