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\parindent & \parskipSynopsis:
\setlength{\parskip}{horizontal len}
\setlength{\parinden}{vertical len}
Both are a rubber lengths (see Lengths). They give the indentation of ordinary paragraphs, not paragraphs inside minipages (see minipage), and the vertical space between paragraphs.
This, put in the preamble,
\setlength{\parindent}{0em}
\setlength{\parskip}{1ex}
arranges that the document will have paragraphs that are not indented, but instead are vertically separated by about the height of a lowercase ‘x’.
In standard LaTeX documents, the default value for \parindent
in one-column documents is 15pt when the default text size is
10pt, 17pt for 11pt, and 1.5em for
12pt. In two-column documents it is 1em. (These values
are set before LaTeX calls \normalfont so em is derived
from the default font, Computer Modern. If you use a different font
then to set \parindent in units matching that font, do
\AtBeginDocument{\setlength{\parindent}{1em}}.) The
default value for \parskip in LaTeX’s standard document styles
is 0pt plus1pt.