\parindent & \parskip (LaTeX2e unofficial reference manual (November 2018))

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### 15.3 `\parindent` & `\parskip`

Synopsis:

    \setlength{\parskip}{horizontal len}
    \setlength{\parinden}{vertical len}

Both are a rubber lengths (see Lengths). They give the indentation of ordinary paragraphs, not paragraphs inside minipages (see minipage), and the vertical space between paragraphs.

This, put in the preamble,

    \setlength{\parindent}{0em}
    \setlength{\parskip}{1ex}

arranges that the document will have paragraphs that are not indented, but instead are vertically separated by about the height of a lowercase ‘`x`’.

In standard LaTeX documents, the default value for `\parindent` in one-column documents is `15pt` when the default text size is `10pt`, `17pt` for `11pt`, and `1.5em` for `12pt`. In two-column documents it is `1em`. (These values are set before LaTeX calls `\normalfont` so `em` is derived from the default font, Computer Modern. If you use a different font then to set `\parindent` in units matching that font, do `\AtBeginDocument{\setlength{\parindent}{1em}}`.) The default value for `\parskip` in LaTeX’s standard document styles is `0pt plus1pt`.

Unofficial LaTeX2e reference manual