text-indent

Whereas Font Properties control the display options of the type of your document, Text Properties control the options pertaining to the layout and appearance of the paragraphs in which the text is presented. Some text properties include text capitalization and minor effects such as blinking and underlined sections of text. text-indent This property is used to indent the first line of a paragraph, and can be expressed as a relative or absolute value. The default is 0 (zero), for no indentation. This property inherits settings from its parent. Negative values may be used to achieve a hanging indentation effect. In using a break (BR) statement in a paragraph, the portion of the paragraph following the break statement will not be indented: the text-indent property must again be invoked. text-indent values length This is value that sets the amount the text is indented on the first line of the paragraph. These values may be absolute or relative, as follows: • mm millimeters. • cm centimeters. • in inches. • pt points, which is a way of measuring the font size. One point is 1/72 (one seventy-second) of an inch. • pc picas, which is yet another way of measuring font size. One pica is equal to 12 points. • px pixels, which is one screen element. The display you're looking at is comprised of thousands of individual dots, each of which can change in color and luminosity to achieve the desired image. Each of these dots is referred to as a pixel. • ex x-height settings, which is the height of the font's lower case letter 'x'. • em em setting. One em is equivalent to the width of a capital letter in the chosen font. Millimeters, centimeters, inches, points, and picas are considered to be absolute lengths because you're specifying the exact size of the type. Relative units such as em and ex are interpreted as references to the parent font size. percentage This value sets the indentation for the first line of the paragraph to a percentage of the total line length available. EXAMPLE: P EM {text-indent: 20%} This example will set all emphasized paragraph statements to have an indentation which is twenty percent (20%) of the total line length available. BODY {text-indent: 2.5cm} This example will cause all indentations within the entire document to be 2.5 cm. Because this value was set in the BODY, which defines the default or base setting, all relative values will be referenced from this value. P, H2 {text-indent: 2em} This example will cause all instances of the heading levels P and H2 to be indented 2 EM units. The size of the EM unit is dependant on the font chosen.