Unusual Paragraph Indent

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http://groups.google.com/group/comp.text.tex/browse_frm/thread/df56a2d5699a46d4/d4b1bb71fa7cb9df

Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Date: 1995/05/26

I'm trying to get an unusual paragraph indentation as follows. The first line in the paragraph is flush with the left margin but the subsequent lines are slightly indented. Apart from the first line, both sides are justified. Here is an example:

The first line of the paragraph is  longer
  than the second and the third and indeed
  all the subsequent ones.  This continues
  up to the end of the paragraph where the
  whole process starts again.

The only way I though of doing this is to define the following environment:

\newenvironment{reference}%
  {\begin{list}{}{%
    \setlength{\leftmargin}{0.5cm}%
    \setlength{\listparindent}{0cm}%
    \setlength{\itemindent}{0cm}%
    \setlength{\labelwidth}{0.5 cm}%
    \setlength{\itemsep}{0cm}%
    \setlength{\parsep}{0cm}%
    \setlength{\labelsep}{0cm}}}
  {\end{list}}

This seems clumsy as I have to do the following:

\begin{reference}
\item [First] word of first paragraph.
\item [Second] paragraph.
\item [Last] paragraph.
\end{reference}

Also, If an item starts with a very short word, it will leave a gap between it and the rest of the sentence.

I think that using a list is the wrong way to do this. Anybody got any better ideas?

Unusual Paragraph Indent

> first line in the paragraph is flush with the left margin but the
> subsequent lines are slightly indented.

> I think that using a list is the wrong way to do this.  Anybody got
> any better ideas?

No, a list is the right way to do it, but not by using items, but just modifying the formatting of the paragraphs. Try the following. It works for me.

\newenvironment{outdent}%
{\begin{list}{}%
{\listparindent=-1.5em\itemindent=\listparindent\leftmargin=1.5em}%
\item[]}%
{\end{list}}

Use it as follows:

\begin{outdent}
first paragraph first paragraph first paragraph first paragraph first
paragraph first paragraph first paragraph first paragraph first paragraph
first paragraph

second paragraph second paragraph second paragraph second paragraph second
paragraph second paragraph second paragraph second paragraph second
paragraph second paragraph second paragraph second paragraph second
paragraph second paragraph second paragraph second paragraph second
paragraph

third paragraph third paragraph third paragraph third paragraph third
paragraph third paragraph third paragraph third paragraph third paragraph
third paragraph third paragraph third paragraph third paragraph third
paragraph third paragraph third paragraph third paragraph third paragraph
\end{outdent}

Scott D. Anderson @cs.umass.edu