Including abstract makes text smaller

Question

I have a little problem in Latex, which can be easily corrected, but nonetheless I'd like to understand what is going on. Briefly, the problem is that in any document, if I include the abstract, all the main text turns to small size.

Here it is the MWE (BTW, the problem is not because of changing the font family, but font sizes are better distinguished this way):

\documentclass[a4paper, 12pt, notitlepage]{article}

\usepackage[english]{babel} 
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\renewcommand*\rmdefault{ppl}

\begin{document}

\abstract{Donec vel lacinia tellus, vel feugiat massa. Proin orci nibh, eleifend vel velit quis, semper faucibus purus. Vivamus ultrices urna eget orci feugiat, vitae elementum mi sagittis. Praesent dignissim mauris lacus, in rhoncus quam posuere sit amet. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Nullam et interdum ante. Proin accumsan erat quam. Nunc nunc eros, tempor quis ante id, pharetra porttitor dui. Sed at enim lobortis, sagittis odio nec, ullamcorper nunc. Aenean varius vel mi ac dictum.}

\newpage    
\section{Introduction}

{\small Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vivamus lobortis iaculis gravida. Suspendisse et dapibus justo. Mauris faucibus massa augue, non placerat nunc faucibus vel. Suspendisse imperdiet sed tortor sed elementum. Nullam at purus imperdiet, dapibus nunc nec, tincidunt diam. Curabitur placerat nulla eu purus volutpat, id porta ipsum gravida. Suspendisse mi odio, euismod nec nulla at, convallis eleifend metus. Curabitur ac cursus nisi.}

Donec vel lacinia tellus, vel feugiat massa. Proin orci nibh, eleifend vel velit quis, semper faucibus purus. Vivamus ultrices urna eget orci feugiat, vitae elementum mi sagittis. Praesent dignissim mauris lacus, in rhoncus quam posuere sit amet. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Nullam et interdum ante. Proin accumsan erat quam. Nunc nunc eros, tempor quis ante id, pharetra porttitor dui. Sed at enim lobortis, sagittis odio nec, ullamcorper nunc. Aenean varius vel mi ac dictum.

{\normalsize Maecenas a est accumsan, tempor mi nec, lacinia nisi. Morbi eleifend odio et mauris facilisis ultricies. Praesent ipsum magna, malesuada vitae euismod non, finibus ac magna. Sed tempus est eu libero hendrerit malesuada. Sed facilisis quam tristique, dignissim enim non, finibus felis. Integer ultricies ligula sit amet nulla bibendum, eget cursus sem fermentum. Duis auctor libero sed arcu pharetra, a ultrices orci pulvinar. Sed varius vehicula dolor non tincidunt.}

\end{document}

If I compile the code as it is, the page would look like this:

WITH abstract line

But if I comment out or delete the line of the abstract, it looks like this:

WITHOUT abstract line

Anyone knows why is this happening?

Thanks!

(1) welcome. (2) abstract is an environment in the article class, use \begin{abstract} ... \end{abstract} — daleif, Feb 02 '15 at 22:11
Welcome to TeX.SX! You can have a look at our starter guide to familiarize yourself further with our format. Actually, you don't seem to need the starter guide since your question is well stated :) — yo', Feb 02 '15 at 22:15
potential duplicate: The abstract environment changes the \linewidth for the whole document — barbara beeton, Feb 02 '15 at 22:28

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 02 '15 at 22:17

In vast majority of LaTeX classes, if abstract is defined, it is an environment, so should be used as such:

\begin{abstract}
Donec vel lacinia tellus, vel feugiat massa.
\end{abstract}

This "bug" you stumbled across is based on the fact, that \begin{abstract} is actually calling the macro \abstract, but with a grouping. This causes, besides other things, the small font size to be preserved. Anyways, the correct thing to do is to use the code I show.

Including abstract makes text smaller

1 Answers1