# \quad not working after using \newline

I am just starting to use LaTeX and I like it a lot.

When I am in a \subsection or \section I can use \quad as much as I wish and it works properly until I use a \newline (or any line breaking command for that matter). Until I change to the next section, \quad will no longer work. Any reason why that is and how I can fix it?

An example:

\quad abc  \quad bbc \newline \quad test \newline


The output:

    abc    bbc
test

• Welcome to TeX.SE! it because of the indent added with \newline try with \newline \noindent – Cfun Jul 7 '16 at 19:47
• LaTeX normally removes horizontal space that comes at the beginning or end of a line see hspace-is-not-working-after-newline-command – Nasser Jul 7 '16 at 19:51
• \quad is an \hspace (actually \hskip). If it were \hspace*, that would have worked. – Werner Jul 7 '16 at 19:52
• @SAM: \newline doesn’t add \indent by itself, since it does not terminate the current paragraph, but forces a line break whitout leaving horizontal mode. On the other hand, if you do say \newline\indent, the space added by \indent will not disappear at line breaks (because it is actually a box). – GuM Jul 7 '16 at 22:36

TeX removes spaces if they appear at the start of a line. You can insert a null object at the start of the line to prevent this.

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\section{A section}
\end{document}


Of course, manually inserting line breaks is unusual, but this is the explanation.

• \hspace*{1em}, not \null – egreg Jul 7 '16 at 20:19
• @IanThompson was wondering why adding manual line breaks is unusual. What would be a better approach? – user3501476 Jul 7 '16 at 20:25
• @user3501476 --- It depends what you want to do. What are you using them for at the moment? – Ian Thompson Jul 7 '16 at 20:43
• I was using the to create spacing after a table (embedded C++ code using the listings package). I also used them to create new paragraphs in a section which I suppose is incorrect. – user3501476 Jul 7 '16 at 20:47
• @user3501476 --- Use a blank line in the code to indicate a new paragraph. There are better ways to insert space after a table, but I don't know what's best without seeing an example (you could ask a new question about this). – Ian Thompson Jul 7 '16 at 20:50

\quad inserts an \hskip which is absorbed at the start of a new line. If you want it to be used, use \hspace*{1em} (which is similar to a \quad).

You can update \quad to take a * as a possible argument, thereby using \hspace* rather than \hspace. The latter is gobbled after a line-break:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{xparse}
\IfBooleanTF{#1}
{\hspace*{1em}}
{\hspace{1em}}}

\begin{document}

\section{A section}

You could do the same for \qquad.