: Why do so many books indent all paragraphs except the first one in each chapter? I've just looked through every printed book I've bought over the past year and noticed a curious pattern that

@Ann6370331

Generally, the first paragraph optically separates better because there is the chapter title just above it, with significant spacing between the two. This is why the first paragraph will generally not need an indent.

All following paragraphs however become more crowded, with little or no added vertical space in between, so the indent makes more sense starting from the second paragraph.

This is something a designer chooses to use, or not. There is no set rule in this regard. I'm sure there are plenty of books out there that do indent even the first paragraph. Most experienced book designers however will probably not indent the first paragraph in a chapter.

Large publishers will have a policy on this and will consistently apply it for their entire book collections.

Since you are working on your own book, i will definitely advise against indenting the first paragraphs. Here's another question that relates to the technical side of this:


Adobe InDesign: Avoiding first line indent of the first paragraph (via Paragraph Style)

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@Odierno310

This is a common approach, but amounts to a stylistic choice. A quick, random check through my library found five books with every paragraph of a chapter indented but the first, one with every paragraph indented, and two with no indentation at all. What you are seeing may have originated with using drop cap lettering:



It is easy to imagine as one evolves from using drop caps, that not indenting the first paragraph would be a choice a printer might make.

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@Becky351

You are correct. This is the way these things are done: only the
paragraphs following the first are indented.

     I can little hope to better express why we do this than
Robert Bringhurst does when he explains in his widely acclaimed
“typographer’s bible”, The Elements of Typographic Style:


2.3 Blocks and Paragraphs

2.3.1 Set opening paragraphs flush left.

The function of a paragraph indent is to mark a pause, setting
the paragraph apart from what precedes it. If a paragraph is
preceded by a title or subhead, the indent is superfluous and
can therefore be omitted, as it is here.

2.3.2 In continuous text, mark all paragraphs after the first
with an indent of at least one en.

Typography like other arts, from cooking to choreography, in-
volves a balance between the familiar and the unfamiliar, the
dependably consistent and the unforeseen. Typographers gen-
erally take pleasure in the unpredictable length of the paragraph
while accepting the simple and reassuring consistency of the
paragraph indent. The prose paragraph and its verse counter-
part, the stanza, are basic units of linguistic thought and literary
style. The typographer must articulate them enough to make
them clear, yet not so strongly the form instead of the con-
tent steals the show. If the units of thought, or the boundaries
between thoughts, look more important than the thoughts
themselves, the typographer has failed.

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