In the written form of many languages, an indentation or indent is an empty space at the beginning of a line to signal the start of a new paragraph. Many computer languages have adopted this technique to designate “paragraphs” or other logical blocks in the program.

For example, the following lines are indented, using between one and six spaces:

This paragraph is indented by 1 space.

This paragraph is indented by 3 spaces.

This paragraph is indented by 6 spaces.

In computer programming, the neologisms outdentunindent and dedent are used to describe the reversal of the indentation process, realigning text with the page margin (or with previous, lesser, levels of indentation).

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