How to put a new line character in an abbreviation?

Question

I tried the following commands:

:abb sm Summary:\n
:abb sm Summary:\\n

but it didn't work, nothing escaped, I ended up with the long form instead of a break.

Is there a way to do that from ex mode? Is it something with one of those ^M characters? I can't remember how to do that.

Answer 1

Use <cr> instead of \n:

iabbrev sm Summary<cr>

You use generally use key notation in these cases, something you can find out more about by entering :h key-notation.