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\parindent
& \parskip
Synopsis:
\setlength{\parskip}{horizontal len} \setlength{\parinden}{vertical len}
Both are a rubber lengths (see Lengths). They give the indentation of ordinary paragraphs, not paragraphs inside minipages (see minipage), and the vertical space between paragraphs.
This, put in the preamble,
\setlength{\parindent}{0em} \setlength{\parskip}{1ex}
arranges that the document will have paragraphs that are not indented, but instead are vertically separated by about the height of a lowercase ‘x’.
In standard LaTeX documents, the default value for \parindent
in one-column documents is 15pt
when the default text size is
10pt
, 17pt
for 11pt
, and 1.5em
for
12pt
. In two-column documents it is 1em
. (These values
are set before LaTeX calls \normalfont
so em
is derived
from the default font, Computer Modern. If you use a different font
then to set \parindent
in units matching that font, do
\AtBeginDocument{\setlength{\parindent}{1em}}
.) The
default value for \parskip
in LaTeX’s standard document styles
is 0pt plus1pt
.