Ahhh yeah, that’s one of those weird-but-spec-compliant things in Markdown. Here's the deal:

🧠 Why Pandoc (and others) Ignore Single Line Breaks

In standard Markdown, a single line break (pressing Enter once) is treated as a space — not a new paragraph or a visible line break. It’s considered part of the same paragraph.

Example:

This is one line  
This looks like a second

Will render as:

This is one line This looks like a second

Unless you...

✅ Ways to Get a Line Break in Pandoc-Generated HTML

1. Use Two Spaces at the End of the Line

Classic Markdown line break:

This is one line␣␣  
This is the next (with a break)

➡️ The ␣␣ (2 spaces) tells Markdown to insert a <br> tag.

2. Use an Explicit <br> Tag

If you’re writing content where you need fine control:

This is one line<br>
This is another

Pandoc respects raw HTML tags in Markdown.

3. Tell Pandoc to Use GitHub-Flavored Markdown (GFM)

GFM handles single line breaks like hard breaks:

pandoc input.md -f gfm -t html -o output.html

Or in the script:

pandoc -f gfm -t html -s input.md -o output.html

TL;DR

• Markdown treats single line breaks as spaces by default
• Use ␣␣ at end of line or -f gfm for more intuitive behavior
• Or drop a <br> and move on 😎