[Tex/LaTex] A list with no labels and no indentation

indentationlists

I'm trying to have a list with no labels and no indentation – aligned at the same left margin as the preceding text. Why doesn't this work? :

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
\noindent No indentation --- before the \verb|list|.
\begin{list}{}{}
\setlength{\leftmargin}{0pt}
\setlength{\labelwidth}{0pt}
\setlength{\labelsep}{0pt}
\item \lipsum[2]
\end{list}
\end{document}

Best Answer

It works if you set the length parameters within the second argument of \begin{list}:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
\noindent No indentation --- before the \verb|list|.
\begin{list}{}{%
  \setlength{\leftmargin}{0pt}%
  \setlength{\labelwidth}{0pt}%
  \setlength{\labelsep}{0pt}%
}
\item \lipsum[2]
\end{list}
\end{document}

You may also use a trivlist environment. Quoting Lamport, LaTeX: A document preparation system, p. 115:

The trivlist environment is a restricted form of the list environment in which margins are not indented and an \item command with no optional argument produces no text. The environment has no arguments and is very much like a list environment whose second argument sets \leftmargin, \rightmargin, \labelwidth, and \itemindent to a length of zero.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
\noindent No indentation --- before the \verb|list|.
\begin{trivlist}
\item \lipsum[2]
\end{trivlist}
\end{document}