Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!jarthur!usc!snorkelwacker!mit-eddie!rutgers!orstcs!jacobs.CS.ORST.EDU!louxj
From: louxj@jacobs.CS.ORST.EDU (John W. Loux)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: Block indentation in TeX
Message-ID: <18811@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU>
Date: 8 Jun 90 23:39:19 GMT
References: <12415@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Sender: usenet@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU
Distribution: comp
Organization: Solve and Integrate Corp. - Corvallis, OR
Lines: 37

In article <12415@cbmvax.commodore.com> kevin@cbmvax.UUCP (Kevin Klop) writes:
>
>Assume I want to set things up so that I can say, "From this point onwards,
>indent an additional 20pts".  
[...]
>basically, I want to do the equivalent of:
>\hskip 20pt
>\vbox{ possibly a LOT of text - amount unknown }
>
>				-- Kevin --

In chapter 14 on page 100 (behind the rock and two paces two the left --- you
can't miss it. :-) there is this discussion:

``TeX has two parameters called \leftskip and \rightskip that specify glue to
be inserted at the left and right of every line in a paragraph;  this glue is
taken into account when badness amd demerits are computed.  Plain TeX normally
keeps \leftskip and \rightskip zero, but it has a `\narrower' macro that
increases both of their values by the current \parindent.  You may want to use
\narrower when quoting lengthy passages from a book.

	{\narrower\smallskip\noindent
	This paragraph will have narrower lines than
	the surrounding paragraphs do, because it
	uses the ``narrower'' feature of plain \TeX.
	The former margins will be restored after
	this group ends.\smallskip}

(Try it.)  The second `\smallskip' in this example ends the paragraph.
It's important to end the paragraph before ending the group, for
otherwise the effect of \narrower will disappear before TeX begins to choose
line breaks.''


John W. Loux
Solve and Integrate Corp.
louxj@jacobs.cs.orst.edu