How to Indent Paragraphs in WordPress

Most blogs are left aligned and aren’t indented. Indention isn’t something common on the web, but it’s possible. Indenting paragraphs will not only improve typography, but it will give a better reading experience too. But, how is indention done? Below are some methods on how you can easily indent paragraphs in WordPress.

Method 1: Using The Indent Text Buttons in Visual Editor

To indent text or paragraphs in WordPress, the easiest way is to use the Visual Editor. Almost all WordPress themes align paragraphs either to the left or to the right. Manually indenting a paragraph is possible by clicking the increase indent button located at visual editor section. With this, space will be added at the left side of the paragraph. If you’re indenting multiple paragraphs all at once, select the paragraphs you wish to indent and then click the increase indent button.

Clicking the add indent multiple times will increase the spacing. Let’s say you clicked the paragraph thrice, then the indent spacing will be tripled.

In case, you’ve added too much space, click on the decrease indent button.

Indent text buttons in the visual text

Method 2: Indent Paragraph Manually Using Text Editor

The most convenient way of indenting paragraphs in WordPress is through the visual editor’s indent text buttons. The thing is, the amount of space added isn’t controlled by you.

CSS code when indenting paragraph

Advanced users manually add spaces in the text editor. They do it by adding inline CSS to the p tags.

Your text goes here...

This is very ideal for specific adjustments that don’t need to be page- or site-wide, with a few paragraphs only.

Method 3: Indent Only The First Line of a Paragraph

There are times when you want a more traditional approach and only indent the first line of a paragraph. To do this, you’ll need to create a custom CSS class.

Launch the WordPress theme customizer in the APPEARANCE> CUSTOMIZE section in the dashboard. Once launched, click the ‘Additional CSS’ button.

CSS code when indenting few paragraphs

A text box will appear at the left side with a box where you will add the CSS code.

p.indentp {
    text-indent:35px;
}

This code directs the browser to add 35px as text-indent to a paragraph with the indentp class.

You’re now allowed to edit a WordPress post and switch to the text editor. What you’re going to do next is wrap your paragraph inside <p class=”indentp”> and </p> tags. It should look like this:

Your text goes here...

You can preview the post to check out if the changes you’ve made has been correctly carried out.

Method 4: Indent The First Line of All Paragraphs

If you want to indent every paragraph on your site, set the custom CSS with the following code:

p {
   text-indent:60px;
}

Indenting web paragraphs isn’t hard. As you can see, there are a lot of ways to do it, hope this helped.