Indentació

Indentació refers to the act of creating a visual offset at the beginning of a line or block. In typography and writing, it signals the start of a paragraph and helps structure content. The exact form of indentation varies by language, culture, and style guide.

In printed text, the most common form is the first-line indent: the initial line is offset from the left margin, while the following lines align with it. Some styles use hanging indentation for bibliographies or references, where the first line is flush left and the rest are indented. Indentation can also mark nested levels in lists or quoted passages.

In programming and markup, indentation serves as a readability aid and, in some languages, a syntactic element. In Python, indentation defines code blocks; in languages like C, Java, or JavaScript, braces determine structure, and indentation is optional but strongly encouraged. Markup languages reflect nesting through indentation but do not rely on it for semantics.

Guidelines vary by medium. In word processing, first-line indent is often 0.5 inches (1.27 cm) or 1 em. In web design, CSS text-indent controls indentation, while in code editors teams choose tabs or spaces for consistency. Over-indentation can reduce readability.

Accessibility and consistency matter: indentation should not imply structure to screen readers beyond what is conveyed by actual markup, and uniform indentation supports readability across devices and formats.