Abstract margins in LaTeX

Question

Hi, I'm new to LaTeX and I've got a

\begin{abstract}
...
\end{abstract}

section and I want to change the margins so the text looks more condensed and centred on the page. I need some code that will do this, without stuffing up the margins for the rest of the document.

Answer 1

By the way, if you're struggling (or can't be arsed to learn the tedious syntax), this is a rather nifty GUI:

http://www.lyx.org/

Answer 2

Though not very clean, this would be the easiest solution:

\begin{abstract}
    \centering
    \begin{minipage}{0.5\textwidth}
        ...
    \end{minipage}
\end{abstract}

Replace 0.5 by whatever fraction of your body text width you want your abstract to be.

Answer 3

Easiest thing is to create a new abstract environment with \newenvironment. This Wikibook has extensive information on messing with laTeX.

Answer 4

The following code might do what you want (Change the numbers if need be, obviously):

\setlength\absleftindent{0.5in}
\setlength\absrightindent{0.5in}

I think this only works for the memoir document class.

Answer 5

The minipage is a good idea.

Instead of centering, you can try to manually set \hspace{-40pt} as you wish.