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I have a rather big document, my thesis actually, and I would like to indent all of my paragraphs. Of course, I could use the command \indent in every single paragraph, but that's extremely cumbersome.

So, how can I tell LaTeX, with a single command, to indent not only the first paragraph of a section, but all of them.

I'm using Texmaker, by the way.

Au101
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Est
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    Just end a paragraph by leaving a blank line in the TeX file. If you use \\, it's the wrong way. – egreg Jan 30 '16 at 18:31
  • And if you need paragraphs indented even after section headings as well and you are using any of the standard document classes, load the indentfirst package. – Alan Munn Jan 30 '16 at 18:34
  • Going line by line putting a blank space in between is the same as just putting an "\indet". If it can be easily done in Word it should be possible to get it done with a single line in latex... – Est Jan 30 '16 at 18:40
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    You need some way to mark a paragraph in the source as opposed to just a word space. In tex that is a blank line, it could not be much less markup?? – David Carlisle Jan 30 '16 at 18:41
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    Word marks a paragraph with a hidden mark that you don't see, but it's there. LaTeX just uses a blank line instead of a hidden mark. What's the difference? The real issue is that when you entered your source document you didn't mark the paragraphs correctly, and now you want LaTeX to solve that problem for you, but it can't. – Alan Munn Jan 30 '16 at 18:45
  • @Est: Putting a blank space is faster than typing \indent: only two carriage returns. Otherwise, you can type par at the end of the paragraph. – Bernard Jan 30 '16 at 19:33
  • Well there's the “\” obviously and that should be enough. It prolly is, I’m just unable to get it done. – Est Jan 30 '16 at 22:09
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    No as @egreg already told you, \ does not end a paragraph. You need to replace all those with blank lines in the places you need new paragraphs. (Since \ has legitimate uses other places, I would not recommend doing a global search and replace.) – Alan Munn Jan 30 '16 at 22:14
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    @Est have you seen any documentation that suggests \\ ends a paragraph? If there is any we should get it fixed. – David Carlisle Jan 30 '16 at 22:22
  • For an explanation see Best choice between using \ or leaving space after each paragraph to end the paragraph – Alan Munn Jan 30 '16 at 22:23
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    yeap, u guys seem to be rather right. THX for correcting me in my mistake. Bad on me. I’m adding the blank lines as I… write haha – Est Jan 30 '16 at 22:31

2 Answers2

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You never need to use \indent at the start of a paragraph (it does nothing there at all, it is just in the language for symmetry with \noindent.

The indentation can be controlled for all paragraphs by setting \parindent

enter image description here

Note how the second two paragraphs using \indent match the first two.

\documentclass{article}

\setlength\textwidth{5cm}
%\setlength\parindent{0pt}

\begin{document}

One two three four five six seven eight.
One two three four five six seven eight.
One two three four five six seven eight.

One two three four five six seven eight.
One two three four five six seven eight.
One two three four five six seven eight.


\indent One two three four five six seven eight.
One two three four five six seven eight.
One two three four five six seven eight.

\indent One two three four five six seven eight.
One two three four five six seven eight.
One two three four five six seven eight.

\end{document}

uncomment the line to set \parindent to zero and you get enter image description here

David Carlisle
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You are trying to get LaTeX to solve a problem of your own making. The correct way to mark a new paragraph in LaTeX is to leave a blank line between it and the previous paragraph. Instead of doing this, you have probably used \\, which is incorrect, since it does not start a new paragraph, but merely forces the text onto the next line. See

If you correctly use blank lines to separate paragraphs, then every paragraph except those that appear immediately after a section heading will be indented automatically. If for some reason you need to indent those paragraphs also, you can load the indentfirst package, which will cause all paragraphs even those following a section heading to be indented.

Since there are various places in which the use of \\ is valid (inside tabulars, for example, but also other places) I would not recommend doing a global search and replace of all such instances in your file.

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Alan Munn
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