Wikipedia:Break means pause

Do not use a line break anywhere in an article where you would not expect to hear a two-second pause. When editing, line breaks are usually encountered either as:

• An empty line between blocks of text,
• The HTML tag <br />, or
• The template {{br}}, which is just a wrapper for the HTML tag.

Line breaks are not a proper tool for controlling the displayed width of text. Instead, they have a clear meaning: when you use a line break, you are telling the reader that they have reached a boundary separating two paragraphs. Some readers may take your word for it when you tell them this. For example, screen readers may pause reading when they encounter a line break, including a line break you quickly inserted into a column header in a table—or that you inserted into every column header across an entire article. Always use another method to control the width of text if you don't intend to break up that text.

Overview

Wikipedia articles are HTML documents. While this is potentially an underwhelming declaration, it's worth it to keep in mind that HTML defines the meaning of its elements, not simply their appearance.

Solutions

Lists

The best way to create lists on Wikipedia is to create lists—and not to use line breaks, which instead communicate that you are sequencing sufficiently unrelated items, like independent paragraphs. By default, Wikipedia lists using asterisks (<ul>...</ul>) are bulleted, which is often unacceptable in infoboxes or other claustrophobic places. Instead, you can:

• Use vertical lists with styling disabled, which can be done easily with templates like {{unbulleted list}} or {{plainlist}}.
• You may even find that a horizontal list via {{hlist}}, {{flatlist}}, or {{cslist}} is preferable in a given situation. These are also structured semantically as lists, but they flow like body text.

Table cells

Usually, line breaks are used in tables because one cell being too wide elongates the entire column it's in, which is not ideal in many situations when column headers or entries more than few words longer than usual may be required.

• Often, the best solution to outlier entries in tables is to define the width of the column explicitly, such that the text inside outlier cells will be forced to wrap.
• Failing that, try again to make outliers fit within the table. Another copyediting pass may result in a discovery that entries can be made shorter after all.
• If you're still struggling: outlier entries are sometimes a sign that the table itself is unbalanced somehow. If entries can't be made to roughly match in length, it's possible that the logic underlying the table needs to be reconsidered.

See also

• Wikipedia:Colons and asterisks