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I've been using Latex for some years but in the recent days I started facing a samll issue.

When I end an itemize (or similar) block or when I start writing the abstract or again in general when I start a new paragraph I have a small space in the beginning of the first line. How can I avoid it? In the body of the article I just use a \\ to begin a new line and it corrects the space but gives the non fatal error No line here to end.

Is there any setting to change?

enter image description here

egreg
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Leonardo Acquaroli
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    you ask about itemize but show no code and show an nimage of some output with no lists. By default pragraphs have an indent, text after an itemize may or may not start a new paragraph (and so have an indent) depending on whether there is a blank line in the source. Never use \\ at the start or end of a paragraph. – David Carlisle Nov 20 '23 at 16:51
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    if you want paragraphs to be marked with no indent and instead use vertical space (as is common in web sites, but less common in published documents) you could use \usepackage{parskip} – David Carlisle Nov 20 '23 at 16:52
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    Simple rule to keep in mind: paragraphs are ended by a blank line, not by \\. – egreg Nov 20 '23 at 18:19

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The “small space” you get is called “indent” (in Italian “rientro”).

It has been a common typographic practice for a few centuries (since the start of movable type printing). At the beginning of the 20th century it was fashionable in certain typographic circles to replace the indent with a vertical space.

This style, nowadays, is only common in commercial letters. Or in Markdown, like here.

My suggestion is to keep the “small space”: take a book off your shelf at random and chances are good that it uses indentation rather than vertical space.

In any case, never end a paragraph in LaTeX code with \\, but just leaving a blank line which will not produce vertical space in output, unless you want it.

If you really want to be “modernistic” like in the 20's of the 20th century, that is 100 years ago, do

\usepackage{parskip}

and indents will vanish, replaced by vertical space between paragraphs. Then think to how much space you're wasting.

egreg
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