Latex Multiple Linebreaks

Question

I use LaTeX to type up programming homeworks for classes. I need to do this:

my line of text blah blah blah  new line of text with blank line between  

I know I can use double slash to break lines \\, but LaTeX will only take the first line break (complains about more) and starts a new line, it produces this :

my line of text blah blah blah   new line of text with blank line between  

How can I get that extra line break in there so I can have space between my lines of text?

Answer 1

Line break accepts an optional argument in brackets, a vertical length:

line 1 \\[4in] line 2 

To make this more scalable with respect to font size, you can use other lengths, such as \\[3\baselineskip], or \\[3ex].

Answer 2

Do you want more space between paragraphs? Then you can change the parameter \parskip.

For example, try

\setlength{\parskip}{10pt plus 1pt minus 1pt} 

This means that the space between paragraphs is usually 10pt, but can grow or shrink by up to 1pt. This means you give LaTeX the ability to change it up to one 1pt in order to achieve a better page layout. You can remove the plus and minus parts to make it always your specified length.

If you are trying to display source code, try the listings package or use verbatim. If you are trying to typeset pseudocode, try the algorithm package.