Page Layout ⇒ Eliminating automatic indentation

[pottertl]

Is there a way to format a document so that all automatic indentation is suppressed, but \indent functions normally? When I use the \setlength{\parindent}{0in} it seems as if \indent stops working. Thoughts?

[Juanjo]

I suppose you want to supress indentation in each paragraph, but preserve the \indent functionality to manually introduce indentation in some isolated paragraphs, isn't it? Since \parindent is the skip that \indent puts, by definition, at the beginning of each paragraph, if you set \parindent to 0 pt, then you «disable» \indent. Anyway, you can define your own macro, say, \tab, and use it instead of \indent. For example:

Code: Select all

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\usepackage{parskip}
\newcommand{\tab}{\hspace*{2em}}

\begin{document}
\lipsum[1]

\tab \lipsum[2]

\lipsum[3]

\tab \lipsum[4]
\end{document}

Please note the use of the parskip package, which sets \parindent to 0pt and increases \parskip in order to make distinguishable two consecutive paragraphs.