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From: anita@brahms.udel.edu (Anita Marie Hoover)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: Indenting first paragraph
Keywords: Indenting Paragraph, LaTeX
Message-ID: <21471@brahms.udel.edu>
Date: 17 May 91 12:36:55 GMT
References: <_x-hqdm@rpi.edu>
Distribution: comp.text.tex
Organization: University of Delaware
Lines: 64

In article <_x-hqdm@rpi.edu> tomliew@aix01.aix.rpi.edu (Thomas Liew) writes:
=>Sometime ago there was some discussion on whether to indent the 
=>first paragraph immediately following a section title or header.
=>I don't remember if anyone illustrated how to do the indentation.
=>I had no luck with /indent.  Can some one throw some light on 
=>how it can be done.  Well I have no choice as I need to indent 
=>that first paragraph to conform to a particular journal style.
=>I am using LaTeX to write the paper. 

The definition of all sectioning commands give negative values for
before the skip (except \paragraph and \subparagraph).  According to
the definition of \@startsection which all these macros are defined,
negative values mean, don't indent the first paragraph after the section
command.

Here is the definition from rep12.sty for sections:


\def\section{\@startsection {section}{1}{\z@}{-3.5ex plus -1ex minus
 -.2ex}{2.3ex plus .2ex}{\Large\bf}}
\def\subsection{\@startsection{subsection}{2}{\z@}{-3.25ex plus -1ex minus
 -.2ex}{1.5ex plus .2ex}{\large\bf}}
\def\subsubsection{\@startsection{subsubsection}{3}{\z@}{-3.25ex plus
 -1ex minus -.2ex}{1.5ex plus .2ex}{\normalsize\bf}}
\def\paragraph{\@startsection
 {paragraph}{4}{\z@}{3.25ex plus 1ex minus .2ex}{-1em}{\normalsize\bf}}
\def\subparagraph{\@startsection
 {subparagraph}{4}{\parindent}{3.25ex plus 1ex minus
 .2ex}{-1em}{\normalsize\bf}}

Here is the explanation of the \@startsection from latex.tex:

%     *****************************************
%     *              SECTIONING               *  
%     *****************************************
%
%
% \@startsection {NAME}{LEVEL}{INDENT}{BEFORESKIP}{AFTERSKIP}{STYLE}
%            optional * [ALTHEADING]{HEADING}
%    Generic command to start a section.
%    NAME       : e.g., 'subsection'
%    LEVEL      : a number, denoting depth of section -- e.g., chapter=1,
%                 section = 2, etc.
%    INDENT     : Indentation of heading from left margin
%    BEFORESKIP : Absolute value = skip to leave above the heading.
%                 If negative, then paragraph indent of text following
%                 heading is suppressed.
%    AFTERSKIP  : if positive, then skip to leave below heading, else
%                 negative of skip to leave to right of run-in heading.
%    STYLE      : commands to set style

So if you put the following in the preamble of your document the
paragraph after the sections with be indented.

\makeatletter
\def\section{\@startsection {section}{1}{\z@}{3.5ex plus 1ex minus
 .2ex}{2.3ex plus .2ex}{\Large\bf}}
\def\subsection{\@startsection{subsection}{2}{\z@}{3.25ex plus 1ex minus
 .2ex}{1.5ex plus .2ex}{\large\bf}}
\def\subsubsection{\@startsection{subsubsection}{3}{\z@}{3.25ex plus
 1ex minus .2ex}{1.5ex plus .2ex}{\normalsize\bf}}
\makeatother

By the way, \z@ is just a macro that expands to 0pt.