Inside of a table column with a width determined by a p{5in} tag, I want all but the first line of text to be indented.
Is there any way to achieve this? Doing it by hand would make later edits overly cumbersome.
Thanks!
[Tex/LaTex] Indent all but first lines of paragraph.
indentationparagraphstablestwo-column
Related Solutions
The enumerate environment removes the paragraph indentation, but you may restore that. Afterwards the paragraphs within enumerate would be indented, but not the first one, like desired. For example, create a myenumerate environment and use this instead:
\newenvironment{myenumerate}{%
\edef\backupindent{\the\parindent}%
\enumerate%
\setlength{\parindent}{\backupindent}%
}{\endenumerate}
It could be done even easier using the enumitem package:
\usepackage{enumitem}
\setenumerate{listparindent=\parindent}
For your convenience, here's a complete example. It uses the first redefiniton, but the two enumitem lines (and the enumerate environment) would give the same result:
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage{blindtext}
%
\newenvironment{myenumerate}{%
\edef\backupindent{\the\parindent}%
\enumerate%
\setlength{\parindent}{\backupindent}%
}{\endenumerate}
%
\begin{document}
\begin{myenumerate}
\item
\begin{myenumerate}
\item \blindtext
\blindtext
\item \blindtext
\end{myenumerate}
\end{myenumerate}
\end{document}
I recommend to use the enumitem package, it offers many further features for customizing lists.
The tabular environment redefines \par to be \@empty:
\let\par\@empty
To obtain the "original" meaning of \par you could use a \multicolumn with a p{}-type column. However, in this case you don't really need to introduce new paragraphs in the cell; you can do something like the following:
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\begin{document}
\begin{table*}
\small
\centering
\begin{tabular}{@{} l c c @{}}
\toprule
Characteristic & \multicolumn{2}{c}{Result}\\
\cmidrule{2-3}
& Seaweed isolate & Coral isolate \\
\midrule
Cell shape & Rod & Rod\\
Gram stain & $-$ & $-$\\
Oxidase & $+$ & $-$\\
Catalase & $+$ & $-$\\
Anaerobic & Growth (weak) & No growth\\
Motility & $+$ & $-$ or ? \\
Indole production & $+$ & $-$ or ? \\
Hugh \& Leifsons & ? & ? \\
MSA \\
\hspace*{0.5cm}Growth & $+$ & $-$ \\
\hspace*{0.5cm}Mannitol utilisation & $+$ & ? \\
%Growth in absence of salt & & \\ (Didn't get time to do this one.)
Colony pigmentation & White & White \\
Colony texture & Smooth, creamy & Waxy, pellet-like \\
Colony edges & Entire & Entire \\
Colony shape & Round & Round \\
Colony elevation & Flat & Buldge\\
Medium modifications & Cracked patterns & Clear halo, pits, liquification\\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\end{table*}
\end{document}
Note that I used \centering instead of the center environment to avoid extra vertical space and that \small doesn't require the use of braces (it's a switch with no arguments). I also used table* instead of figure*.
Best Answer
\everypar{\hangindent1em \hangafter1}seems to do what you want.