Spacing & Layout

How to Remove Paragraph Indentation in LaTeX

By default, LaTeX indents the first line of every new paragraph (except right after a heading). While this is traditional in typeset books, many modern documents, theses, and business reports prefer no indentation with space between paragraphs instead. Here's how to control paragraph indentation in LaTeX. Bibby AI's document settings panel lets you toggle indentation on or off with one click, which is more intuitive than editing preamble commands in Overleaf.

Remove Indentation for a Single Paragraph

Use \noindent at the beginning of a paragraph to suppress its indentation without affecting the rest of the document:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}

This paragraph has the default indentation.

\noindent This paragraph has no indentation because
of the \verb|\noindent| command.

This paragraph is indented again (back to default).

\end{document}

Remove Indentation Globally

Set \parindent to zero in the preamble. When removing indentation, you should add space between paragraphs (\parskip) so they're visually separated:

\documentclass{article}

% Remove indentation globally
\setlength{\parindent}{0pt}

% Add space between paragraphs (important!)
\setlength{\parskip}{0.5\baselineskip plus 2pt minus 1pt}

\begin{document}

First paragraph with no indentation.

Second paragraph also has no indentation,
but there's space between them for readability.

Third paragraph continues the pattern.

\end{document}

Using the parskip Package (Recommended)

The parskip package handles both indentation removal and paragraph spacing, plus it fixes spacing issues in lists and other environments:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{parskip}

\begin{document}

The parskip package removes indentation and adds
appropriate space between paragraphs automatically.

It also correctly handles spacing in lists, quotes,
and other environments — something manual \verb|\setlength|
adjustments can miss.

\begin{itemize}
    \item List items are properly spaced too
    \item No extra gaps or missing gaps
\end{itemize}

\end{document}

💡 Tips

•Use the parskip package instead of manual \setlength — it handles edge cases in lists and environments.
•Never remove indentation without adding paragraph spacing — readers can't tell where paragraphs begin otherwise.
•Some document classes (like letters) already have \parindent set to 0pt by default.
•Bibby AI's layout panel lets you toggle indentation and adjust paragraph spacing visually without touching the preamble.

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