Spacing in Paragraphs

This article introduces two new packages which can assist users in making changes to various aspects of paragraph spacing.

parskip package

In general, this package is effortless to use. The parskip package doesn’t provide any user-level commands; instead, it uses package options to configure its actions. The parskip documentation is brief, just three pages, but here is a short summary of the package options:

• skip: specify \parskip, the vertical space between paragraphs.

• tocskip: specify a non-zero \parskip value for use in \tableofcontents and similar lists

• indent: set the value of \parindent, the paragraph indentation.

• parfill: adjusts the value of \parfillskip, the glue added at the end of the last line in a paragraph.

You can use \the - a powerful command - to extracts a representation of the value assigned to a macro command.

For example, in order to view the value of \skip, you can use \the\parskip.

setspace package

While parskip focuses on indentation and vertical space between paragraph, setspace focuses on the spacing of your document’s lines of text.

Here are some main commands that setspace provides:

• \singlespacing, \onehalfspacing and \doublespacing - can be used in the preamble, or within the document body to change spacing in part, or all of your document.

• \setstretch{baselinestretch amount} command sets a custom spacing - can be used in preamble.

• spacing environment provides custom spacing and requires one argument: the \baselinestretch value to use

For example and reference, please visit this site.