par

Element

Element

Element functions can be customized with set and show rules.

A logical subdivison of textual content.

Typst automatically collects inline-level elements into paragraphs. Inline-level elements include text, horizontal spacing, boxes, and inline equations.

To separate paragraphs, use a blank line (or an explicit parbreak). Paragraphs are also automatically interrupted by any block-level element (like block, place, or anything that shows itself as one of these).

The par element is primarily used in set rules to affect paragraph properties, but it can also be used to explicitly display its argument as a paragraph of its own. Then, the paragraph's body may not contain any block-level content.

Boxes and blocks

As explained above, usually paragraphs only contain inline-level content. However, you can integrate any kind of block-level content into a paragraph by wrapping it in a box.

Conversely, you can separate inline-level content from a paragraph by wrapping it in a block. In this case, it will not become part of any paragraph at all. Read the following section for an explanation of why that matters and how it differs from just adding paragraph breaks around the content.

What becomes a paragraph?

When you add inline-level content to your document, Typst will automatically wrap it in paragraphs. However, a typical document also contains some text that is not semantically part of a paragraph, for example in a heading or caption.

The rules for when Typst wraps inline-level content in a paragraph are as follows:

• All text at the root of a document is wrapped in paragraphs.

• Text in a container (like a block) is only wrapped in a paragraph if the container holds any block-level content. If all of the contents are inline-level, no paragraph is created.

In the laid-out document, it's not immediately visible whether text became part of a paragraph. However, it is still important for various reasons:

• Certain paragraph styling like first-line-indent will only apply to proper paragraphs, not any text. Similarly, par show rules of course only trigger on paragraphs.

• A proper distinction between paragraphs and other text helps people who rely on assistive technologies (such as screen readers) navigate and understand the document properly. Currently, this only applies to HTML export since Typst does not yet output accessible PDFs, but support for this is planned for the near future.

• HTML export will generate a <p> tag only for paragraphs.

When creating custom reusable components, you can and should take charge over whether Typst creates paragraphs. By wrapping text in a block instead of just adding paragraph breaks around it, you can force the absence of a paragraph. Conversely, by adding a parbreak after some content in a container, you can force it to become a paragraph even if it's just one word. This is, for example, what non-tight lists do to force their items to become paragraphs.

Example

#set par(
  first-line-indent: 1em,
  spacing: 0.65em,
  justify: true,
)

We proceed by contradiction.
Suppose that there exists a set
of positive integers $a$, $b$, and
$c$ that satisfies the equation
$a^n + b^n = c^n$ for some
integer value of $n > 2$.

Without loss of generality,
let $a$ be the smallest of the
three integers. Then, we ...