The hard line break moves the next word to the begin­ning of a new line with­out start­ing a new para­graph.

A hard line break can help con­trol text flow when a car­riage return won’t work. For instance, this head­ing breaks awk­wardly:

IV.    The defen­dant is enti­tled to judg­ment as a mat­ter of
law.

Sup­pose you want the line to break after judg­ment so the first line ends in a more log­i­cal place and the two lines are bet­ter bal­anced. If you use a car­riage return, you’ll get:

IV.    The defen­dant is enti­tled to judg­ment

V.    as a mat­ter of law.

Not what you want. Instead, put a hard line break after judg­ment:

IV.    The defen­dant is enti­tled to judg­ment
as a mat­ter of law.

See cen­tered text for another exam­ple of how the hard line break can be use­ful.