Hard and soft returns (and why your formatting is messed up)

Word treats Enter and Shift + Enter as two completely different commands, and if you mix them, your document will behave as though possessed.

Enter: Hard return

Shift + Enter: Soft return

What do they look like?

What each return actually does

Hard return (Enter)

A hard return creates a new paragraph separate to the one above it. Paragraphs have their own:

Paragraph spacing before/after
Line spacing
Style
Outline level
List behaviour

Hard returns are the main tool of Word’s text structure.

Soft return (Shift+Enter)

Soft returns create a line break inside the same paragraph. They do not start a new paragraph, so:

Spacing before/after doesn’t apply
Styles don’t reset
The outline level doesn’t change
List behaviour differs (bullets wont align, number lists won't advance)

Soft returns are fine in moderation — but overused, they can break things.

These are both easy to remove just use backspace or delete as needed. But what if there are several of either throughout your document?

How to get rid of several hard or soft returns in one go

Go here: Remove multiple blank lines

Hard and soft returns in lists

See this article for how hard and soft returns behave in lists: Hard & soft returns in lists

When it's not a hard or soft return

If you have a gap between text paragraphs and can't place the insertion point in it then it's not a soft or hand return; it's line/paragraph spacing that's gone wrong instead. See this article for a quick fix: Fixing irregular line spacing.

Hard return (Enter)

Soft return (Shift + Enter)

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