Line breaks in R Markdown text (not code blocks)

Question

Using the tufte_template rmarkdown file, I am trying to create a new paragraph (for example, \newthought{} , but without restrictions). I use two spaces, indicated here: *:

 # Introduction The Tufte-\LaTeX\ [^tufte_latex] document** ** classes define a style similar to the style Edward Tufte uses in his books... 

but get this result:

I tried \n instead of the second pair of spaces (**), but pandoc throws an error.

 pandoc.exe: Error producing PDF from TeX source Error: pandoc document conversion failed with error 43 

Finally, I tried using the <br> tag, but this does not seem to have any effect - it does not print text or a break in PDF.

I need a new paragraph without indentation, similar to \ newthought {}, but without capitalization ... is there a way?

Update 1 using sessionInfo ():

 > sessionInfo() R version 3.1.2 (2014-10-31) Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit) locale: [1] LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252 LC_CTYPE=English_United States.1252 [3] LC_MONETARY=English_United States.1252 LC_NUMERIC=C [5] LC_TIME=English_United States.1252 attached base packages: [1] stats graphics grDevices utils datasets methods base loaded via a namespace (and not attached): [1] digest_0.6.8 htmltools_0.2.6 rmarkdown_0.5.1 tools_3.1.2 yaml_2.1.13 

Update 2

This seems to be the problem I am encountering when using the Tufte template:

Answer 1

I tried these tests, it seems to work:

test.Rmd

 --- output: pdf_document --- # test 1 No spaces used line1 line2 # test 2 2spaces at the end of line1 line1 line2 # test 3 2spaces at the end of line1, then 2 spaces on next line line1 line2 

 sessionInfo() R version 3.2.0 (2015-04-16) Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit) Running under: Windows 7 x64 (build 7601) Service Pack 1 locale: [1] LC_COLLATE=English_United Kingdom.1252 LC_CTYPE=English_United Kingdom.1252 [3] LC_MONETARY=English_United Kingdom.1252 LC_NUMERIC=C [5] LC_TIME=English_United Kingdom.1252 attached base packages: [1] stats graphics grDevices utils datasets methods base loaded via a namespace (and not attached): [1] htmltools_0.2.6 tools_3.2.0 yaml_2.1.13 rmarkdown_0.5.1 digest_0.6.8 

Answer 2

This is a pretty old question, but I'm posting the answer since this is the first hit when googling for "line breaks in rmarkdown".

When compiling to pdf, you can use latex macros. Replace ** in a new line \hfill\break :

 # Introduction The Tufte-\LaTeX\ [^tufte_latex] document** \hfill\break classes define a style similar to the style Edward Tufte uses in his books... 

Answer 3

Best way to add blank lines:

 # First title <br><br><br><br><br> # Second title with 5 blank spaces above it 

You can try this, hope this helps. I tested only in html_documents, but this will probably work in pdf too.