Not indent the first paragraph of a LaTeX document

Question

In the standard LaTeX article class (and probably others as well), paragraph indentation follows standard American publishing norms of not indenting the first paragraph after a section{} or subsection{}.

I've redefined \maketitle in a LaTeX document and put the actual title left-aligned as the last line, fairly close to the actual text (kind of like this)

Author
Date

Title

    Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, 
sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore
magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud 
exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo
consequat.

    Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit 
esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint 
occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia 
deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Section title

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, 
sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore
magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud 
exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo
consequat.

    Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit 
esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint 
occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia 
deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Since the title is left-aligned and so close to the text, I'd like the first paragraph of the document to not be indented, just like with the headings

...
Title

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, 
sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore
magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud 
exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo
consequat.

 Duis aute irure dolor...
...

I've attempted to use @afterindentfalse, which is what the section commands use, inside my renewed commands, but it doesn't work.

\makeatletter

\def\noindentation{\let\@afterindentfalse}

\newcommand{\mytitle}[1]{%
 \vskip 2em
 {\bf\sffamily\LARGE #1}
 \noindentation}

\renewcommand{\@maketitle}{
 \begin{flushleft}{

  % Author
  \@author \par 

  % Date
  \@date \par 

  % Title
  \mytitle{\@title}

 } \end{flushleft}
} 
\makeatother

By default the first paragraph in the article class is indented, so this question is applicable whether or not I renew \maketitle.

So, what's the best way to automatically not indent the first paragraph of the document?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Have you tried using the \noindent command in your definition of \maketitle?

Normally when you put \noindent at the beginning of a paragraph, it prevents that paragraph from being indented. It may or may not work for your purposes. (For all I know it might just use \@afterindentfalse internally)

Answer 2

if you want all the paragraphs to have no indent, but a line skip instead, use \usepackage[parfill]{parskip}

from a layout stand point, it seems like it should be an all-or-nothing proposition, either all are indented, or all use the line break to indicate a new paragraph.

Answer 3

The cleanest solution is probably to use \noindent in front of the first paragraph. You only have to do it once, so redefining \maketitle seems like more trouble than it's worth.

If you're determined to redefine \maketitle so that the first paragraph is not indented, then just redefining it to end with \noindent will not work if you have a blank line between \maketitle and the first paragraph (because the blank line causes TeX to enter vertical mode). Instead of using \noindent, you can use the combination \@afterindentfalse\@afterheading. In other words, the following should do what you want:

...
\maketitle
\makeatletter
  \@afterindentfalse
  \@afterheading
\makeatother

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, 
...

If you want to, you can redefine \maketitle to include \@afterindentfalse\@afterheading at the end.

However, it seems like adding \@afterindentfalse\@afterheading to the end of \@maketitle doesn't work. Some of the things that \maketitle does after it does \@maketitle must be messing it up.

Answer 4

I believe problem has to do with grouping. You have to call \@afterindentfalse at the outermost level (and it seems you also have to use \@afterheading). For this reason making a general \noindentation macro may be difficult.

The following modification works for me.

\renewcommand{\@maketitle}{
  \begin{flushleft}{
      % Author
      \@author \par
      % Date
      \@date \par 
      % Title
      \mytitle{\@title}
    }
  \end{flushleft}
  \aftergroup\@afterindentfalse
  \aftergroup\@afterheading
}