[Tex/LaTex] need to use \paragraph{} after a \section{} to get correct indenting whereas a blank line suffices for subsequent paragraphs

indentationparagraphssectioningsections-paragraphs

I have noticed that whenever I start a new section, subsection, etc., I need to preface my text block with \paragraph{} to get correct indentation for the first paragraph. In subsequent paragraphs, however, I note that I can simply leave an empty line and the paragraph is formatted correctly.

Is this correct behaviour, and if so what is the reason for this? Is the first paragraph supposed to be naturally unindented, perhaps for the reason of compatibility with lettrines and such? Is there an easier (terser) way to stipulate first-paragraph indentation?

I'm using the article documentclass under xelatex.

Thanks for any insight you can offer.

Best Answer

This is the expected behavior. If you look into any book, you will see that the first paragraph of each chapter/section is not indented. The indentation is there to signify the start of a new paragraph and thus is not necessary for the first paragraph.

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Paragraph indentation in a list

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}

alt text

I recommend to use the enumitem package, it offers many further features for customizing lists.

[Tex/LaTex] How to indent the paragraphs which follow a heading

The easiest method is to call

\usepackage{indentfirst}

in your preamble. This package is included in all LaTeX distributions.

The standard setting of LaTeX is to suppress indentation in the first paragraph after a sectional title, which is standard usage in American typography.

Some babel language settings do similarly to indentfirst, for instance the French language definition file does, to set up the document according to French typographic traditions.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Paragraph indentation in a list

[Tex/LaTex] How to indent the paragraphs which follow a heading

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