Enter Key - Differences Between Enter and Return

Differences Between Enter and Return

On some keyboard layouts, the return and enter key are two different keys, an artifact of the differing handling of newlines by different operating systems. As an example, on the Macintosh, the return key is the usual key, while the enter key is positioned at the lower right of the numeric key pad. For example, while using the text tool in Adobe Photoshop, the return key produces a new line while the enter key ends editing mode.

On IBM's 3270 and 5250 line of terminals, the Enter key was located to the right of the space bar, and was used to send the contents of the terminal's buffer to the host computer. The Return key was located in a more standard location, and was used to generate a new line.

Apple also took advantage of this situation to create a highly editable command line environment called a "Worksheet" in the Macintosh Programmer's Workshop, where return was used strictly as a formatting key while enter was used to execute a shell command or series of commands in direct mode.

In technical terms, the Macintosh keyboard maps the return key to a carriage return, while the enter key maps to a newline.

Historically, many computer models did not have a separate keypad, and only had one button to function as Enter or Return. For example, the Commodore 64 (manufactured from 1982) had only the "Return" key.