It is a small thing, and it still costs minutes in training sessions on a regular basis: you type an address, press Enter for the next line — and suddenly there is a gap three times bigger than you wanted. The cause is quickly explained, and the solution is one key.
Why Enter creates too much space
The text widget in Elementor runs a classic editor. When you press Enter there, it does not create a line break but a new paragraph — a new <p> element in the source.
Paragraphs come with a bottom margin by default. It comes from your theme or from the global typography settings and is typically a little under one line height. For body copy that is exactly right: paragraphs should be visually separated. For an address, a list of opening hours or a two-line heading it is far too much.
The solution: Shift + Enter
Hold down the shift key when starting the new line. Shift + Enter creates a genuine line break — a <br /> in the source — with no new paragraph and therefore no additional spacing.
This is what the difference looks like in practice:
With Enter:
Martin Pletzenauer
Hochtennstraße 3a
5700 Zell am See
With Shift + Enter:
Martin Pletzenauer
Hochtennstraße 3a
5700 Zell am See
Incidentally, the same rule applies in almost every web editor — in WordPress itself, in many content management systems and in a fair few newsletter tools. So what you are learning here is not just an Elementor trick.
Where else it applies
In the heading widget Shift+Enter works the same way. If you want to break a long heading at a particular point rather than leaving it to the accident of window width, this is the right way to do it.
In button text as well, if you need two-line labels — use sparingly, two-line buttons quickly look restless.
When Shift+Enter is the wrong answer
And now the part missing from most tutorials. A hard line break is a presentational device, not a structural one. There are three cases where you should not use it.
First: for genuine paragraphs. If two blocks of text are separate in terms of content, they belong in two paragraphs. Then Enter is right, and if you do not like the spacing, change it centrally — more on that shortly.
Second: for lists. Three lines made with Shift+Enter look like a list but are not one. To screen readers and to search engines that is one continuous block of text. If it is a list, use a list.
Third: to create spacing. Several empty lines in a row to get some air between two elements — that comes back to bite you on a phone, where the lines wrap differently and the spacing suddenly no longer fits. Use the margins under “Advanced” or a spacer widget for that.
When the paragraph spacing is wrong in principle
If you notice you are constantly fighting the paragraph spacing, Shift+Enter is only a sticking plaster. In that case the global setting is wrong.
Change it centrally: in the Elementor menu under Site Settings → Typography. There you set the default spacing for paragraphs once, correctly, and it applies across the whole website. That is the clean solution — and it saves you the manual work on every single page. How to set up central defaults like this sensibly is described in global colours and fonts in Elementor.
If the spacing is only wrong in one individual place, work in the affected widget under Advanced → Margin with a negative bottom value. Use sparingly — anyone doing that in twenty places actually has a global problem.
Related topic: line height
Line breaks and line height are often confused. The break determines where a line ends; line height determines how much air sits between the lines. If your text feels cramped or pulled apart, it is usually the latter that is meant — I have a separate article on that: setting line height correctly in Elementor.
Elementor Pro: These settings are in the same place in the free version and in Pro. Pro only becomes interesting once you want to control typography centrally in the header area, blog layout and popups as well. View Elementor Pro
If you would rather learn details like this in order than piece them together one at a time, my Elementor training is the direct route.
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