[Tex/LaTex] Change \parskip around itemize environment

itemizelistsparskip

I want to have a non-zero \parskip between the paragraphs, but avoid having it around the "inline" itemize.

I could temporarily change it around each environment, but I have a lot of them in my document. I could also redefine the itemize environment and introduce a \vspace*{-\parskip}, but I'd prefer a cleaner way. Changing \parskip inside the environment is useless as it only works inside the group.

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\parskip=6pt
Praesent hendrerit velit at magna tempus, at malesuada augue lacinia. Pellentesque at malesuada est, vel varius enim. In egestas massa et finibus ultricies. Donec felis erat, placerat et sodales in, egestas non mi.

% >> parskip here!
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.
% >> no parskip here
\begin{itemize}
  \item first
  \item second
\end{itemize}
% >> no parskip here
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.

% >> parskip here!
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.
\end{document}

Packages like paralist and enumitem did not seem to solve the problem in presence of \parskip.

Best Answer

latex uses \topsep as the local version of \parskip in that context so just set \parsep to whatever you need, however if setting without using enumitem or similar package you need to set it indirectly as article sets up each first level list using a predefined set of parameters.

\documentclass{article}
\setlength\parskip{6pt}

\makeatletter
\def\@listI{\leftmargin\leftmargini
            \parsep 4\p@ \@plus2\p@ \@minus\p@
%            \topsep 8\p@ \@plus2\p@ \@minus4\p@
            \topsep\z@
            \itemsep4\p@ \@plus2\p@ \@minus\p@}
\makeatother
\begin{document}

Praesent hendrerit velit at magna tempus, at malesuada augue lacinia. Pellentesque at malesuada est, vel varius enim. In egestas massa et finibus ultricies. Donec felis erat, placerat et sodales in, egestas non mi.

% >> parskip here!
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.
% >> no parskip here
\begin{itemize}
  \item first
  \item second
\end{itemize}
% >> no parskip here
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.

% >> parskip here!
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.
\end{document}

or perhaps you want

            \topsep-6pt

depending how tight you want the spacing.

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Suppress bulleting in itemize environment

You could use the enumitem package to force the label to {} (making it empty):

enter image description here

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{enumitem}% http://ctan.org/pkg/enumitem
\usepackage{multicol}% http://ctan.org/pkg/multicol
\begin{document}
\begin{itemize}
  \item blah
  \begin{multicols}{2}
    \raggedcolumns
    \begin{itemize}[label={}]
      \item a 
      \item b
      \item c 
      \item d
      \item e
      \item f
      \item g
    \end{itemize}
  \end{multicols}
  \item blah... 
\end{itemize}
\end{document}

Note the use of \raggedcolumns to allow non-uniform columns, as provided by the multicol package. The above (nested) list has a separation between the empty label and the item. If you want to get rid of this, add the option labelsep=0pt to the list arguments. The same goes for the margin indent. Read the enumitem package documentation to see the different lengths used in typesetting any item. It may depend on the context of your lists.

[Tex/LaTex] Newline, indentation, parskip – when to use what in what stylistic manner

As mentioned in comments I think that usually in such circumstances the unindented paragraphs are logically section breaks with anonymous untitled sections. So like a titled section they suppress following indentation.

Spacing and font choice could be better and with acknowledgement to Douglas Adams, the except shown in the amazon fragment is I think logically something like this:

\documentclass{book}
\setcounter{secnumdepth}{0}

\begin{document}
\chapter{}

The house stood on a slight rise \ldots

The only person for whom the house was in any way special was Arthur Dent, and \ldots

\ldots bulldozer, found his slippers and stomped off to wash.

\vdots

Fifteen seconds later he was out of the house and lying in front of a big yellow bulldozer that was advancing up his garden path.

\section{}

Mr L. Prosser was, as they say, only human \ldots

He was by no means a great warrior \ldots
\end{document}

Which without any changes to the book layout produces this:

enter image description here

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Suppress bulleting in itemize environment

[Tex/LaTex] Newline, indentation, parskip – when to use what in what stylistic manner

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