Indent doesn't work inside enumerate enviroment

Question

I don't know why the 2nd line here is not indented. Have I loaded a package that overrides indentation? It seems not to work inside an enumerate enviroment.

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{fullpage}
\usepackage{amsfonts}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{amsthm}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage[backend=biber, isbn=false, doi=false]{biblatex-chicago}
\newtheorem{lem}{Lemma}
\newtheorem{ex}{Example}
\newcommand{\Q}{\mathbb{Q}}
\newcommand{\Z}{\mathbb{Z}}
\newcommand{\N}{\mathbb{N}}
\newcommand{\R}{\mathbb{R}}
\newcommand{\C}{\mathbb{C}}
\DeclareMathOperator{\lcm}{lcm}
\DeclareMathOperator{\ord}{ord}
\title{Homework 2 - MATH 4001}
\author{Clyde Kertzer}
\date{\today}
\begin{document}
\setlength{\abovedisplayskip}{5pt}
\setlength{\belowdisplayskip}{5pt}
\setlength{\abovedisplayshortskip}{0pt}
\setlength{\belowdisplayshortskip}{0pt}
\setlength{\parindent}{20pt}
\maketitle
\begin{enumerate}
\item[2.] Show that the sequence of functions
$$ f_n(x)=\frac{n x}{1+n x} $$ 
does not converge uniformly on $[0,1]$.
Paragraph 2 (Why no indent)?

When I run your code, both paragraphs are indented. Since they are both indented the same amount, and there are no lines long enough to wrap, it's difficult to tell, but if I add more to the paragraphs so that the line wraps, the wrapped line isn't indented as far as the first line. Your screenshot is cropped so it's impossible to tell if you're getting a different result or not. — frabjous, Oct 19 '22 at 23:22
as your image shows, both lines are indented by the same amount (20pt) — David Carlisle, Oct 19 '22 at 23:30
You changed your question and now my previous comment doesn't make sense. Anyway, it's normal not to have indentation there. If you want indentation, see this question. Unrelated, but you shouldn't use $$ for display math in LaTeX. See here. — frabjous, Oct 19 '22 at 23:39

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 20 '22 at 07:12

That's the standard behavior in LaTeX. Whenever a list is opened, \listparindent is set to zero. A similar behavior have minipage and \parbox.

If you want to have a different parindent in lists, you have to specify it and the simplest way is to use enumitem.

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage{enumitem}
\setlist[enumerate]{listparindent=\parindent}
\begin{document}
\begin{enumerate}
\item Show that the sequence of functions
[
f_n(x)=\frac{n x}{1+n x}
]
does not converge uniformly on $[0,1]$.
Paragraph 2 (Why no indent)?
\end{enumerate}
\end{document}

wipet · Answer 2 · 2022-10-20T04:48:22.993

The following trick hides \parindent primitive register, so no macros have write access to this register. They can only read the value, which is copied to the faked \parindentA register.

\parindent=20pt  % setting desired value
\newdimen\parindentA  \parindentA=\parindent % value is copied  
\let\parindent=\parindentA  % the primitive \parindent is unaccessible after this
\expandafter \let \csname tex_parindent:D\endcsname=\parindentA

Indent doesn't work inside enumerate enviroment

2 Answers2