[Tex/LaTex] How to use the parskip package? (space in between paragraphs)

paragraphsparskipspacing

Sorry, because I think it's a many times asked topic. But I don't find an example which help me to understand how to create a white space between paragraphs.

I think parskip is the package I need to use but I don't know how to use it.

I have this sample of LaTeX trying to understand how to use parskip package. What am I doing wrong?

\documentclass{report}

\usepackage{parskip}

\begin{document}
\setlength{\parskip}{0pt} % 1ex plus 0.5ex minus 0.2ex}
\setlength{\parindent}{0pt}

\section{Section Headings}

We explain in this section how to obtain headings
for the various sections and subsections of our
document.

\subsection{Headings in the `article' Document Style}

In the ``article'' style, the document may be divided up
into sections, subsections and subsubsections, and each
can be given a title, printed in a boldface font,
simply by issuing the appropriate command.
\parskip
Lorem ipsum `comillas simples' sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.
Fusce at augue nisi. Mauris vel metus velit. Nunc vitae augue justo, non euismod risus.
Nullam et bibendum nisl. Vestibulum nec leo lectus. Phasellus non dui et ipsum malesuada
venenatis vitae ut risus. Phasellus tincidunt erat sollicitudin leo auctor sed porta leo
commodo. Nullam et adipiscing libero. Ut et mi ac dui facilisis faucibus. Fusce eget magna
a quam volutpat accumsan. Duis dictum luctus ligula, at facilisis leo blandit sit amet.
Phasellus congue ornare lectus scelerisque malesuada. Praesent et cursus nulla. Quisque
aliquam felis ac nunc scelerisque a consectetur elit mattis.
\\

\end{document}

Will this spacing work in the entire document?

Best Answer

Just load the parskip package and don't change the \parskip and \parindent lengths manually. In the document body, don't use \parskip but a blank line to separate paragraphs.

BTW, there's normally no need to add manual line breaks (\\) in the text.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{parskip}

\begin{document}

We explain in this section how to obtain headings
for the various sections and subsections of our
document.

In the ``article'' style, the document may be divided up
into sections, subsections and subsubsections, and each
can be given a title, printed in a boldface font,
simply by issuing the appropriate command.

\end{document}

enter image description here

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to use a vertical space between paragraphs, rather than indentation

Adding

\usepackage{parskip}

to the preamble of your document (the part between \documentclass{...} and \begin{document} will set the paragraphs to have no indentation and a bit of space between them.

Note that this isn't a complete solution, because there may be elements in your document that you don't want this format to apply to (footnotes, for example). A proper solution would involve (effectively) writing a new document class.

You can read a bit about how the parskip package works by looking at the comments in parskip.sty itself.

[Tex/LaTex] Remove/Reduce vertical space between paragraphs for acm_proc_article-sp

I found a copy of the relevant class file here; assuming that this is the same as the one that you are using, the culprit is the following comment:

\parskip 0pt        % Extra vertical space between paragraphs.
                    % Set to 0pt outside sections, to keep section heads
                    % uniformly spaced.  The value of parskip is set
                    % to leading value _within_ sections.
                    % 12 Jan 2000 gkmt

Sure enough, looking further down in the document we find that in the definition of the section commands, \parskip gets reset. For example:

\def\@ssect#1#2#3#4#5{%
  \@tempskipa #3\relax
  \ifdim \@tempskipa>\z@
    \begingroup
      #4{%
        \@hangfrom{\hskip #1}%
          \interlinepenalty \@M #5\@@par}%
    \endgroup
  \else
    \def\@svsechd{#4{\hskip #1\relax #5}}%
  \fi
  \vskip -10.5pt  %gkmt, 7 jan 00 -- had been -14pt, now set to parskip
  \@xsect{#3}\parskip=10.5pt} % within the starred section, parskip = leading 12 Jan 2000 gkmt

That innocuous \parskip=10.5pt at the end means that every time a \section, \subsection, \subsubsection, or \paragraph command is used then \parskip gets reset to 10.5pt. (The command \@sect has the same ending.)

So to reduce \parskip, you need to reduce it each time that you start a section or otherwise. Depending on your needs, a variety of strategies are possible. The simplest would be to have a copy of the class file in the same directory as the TeX file and simply edit out that extra \parskip=10.5pt (actually, edit out both of them: one from \@ssect and one from \@sect). If you need to leave the class file pristine for some reason, then you can redefine these commands in your preamble. The simplest would be to simply copy out the definitions from the class file with the appropriate modifications to \parskip. If you do this, then the copied definitions need to be sandwiched between \makeatletter ... \makeatother.

If you want to be a bit more fancy, you could have the \section commands remember what \parskip is when they are called, then reset it at the end. This would involve hacking three commands from the class file, since the command \@startsection also messes with \parskip. So it would be something like (not tested!):

\makeatletter
\let\orig@startsection=\@startsection
\let\orig@ssect=\@ssect
\let\orig@sect=\@sect
\newskip\orig@parskip
\orig@parskip\parskip % just for safety's sake!

\def\@startsection{%
 \orig@parskip\parskip%
 \orig@startsection}

\def\@ssect#1#2#3#4#5{%
 \orig@ssect{#1}{#2}{#3}{#4}{#5}%
 \parskip\orig@parskip}

\def\@sect#1#2#3#4#5#6[#7]#8{%
 \orig@sect{#1}{#2}{#3}{#4}{#5}{#6}[#7]{#8}%
 \parskip\orig@parskip}

\makeatother

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to use a vertical space between paragraphs, rather than indentation

[Tex/LaTex] Remove/Reduce vertical space between paragraphs for acm_proc_article-sp

Related Question