Use of this feature rather than paragraph can give you the 'proper' indented on the first line look of a paper. You can also do the same using the preformatted text tag and a text file set up with the number of spacing the way you want them. Ultimately, it is going to be up to you how you want to do it.

I have usually used the text and preformatted tag method because that situation has always arisen with files I can easily convert into text and not have to re-type. I'm a bit lazy and do not type any more than necessary.

The indent can be listed as a percentage, as 0.5in or as 4 cm. It is usually better to do percentages, remember?

This is an example of a left-aligned paragraph. It is ragged on the right but perfectly aligned on the left.

This is an example of a left-aligned paragraph. It is ragged on the right but perfectly aligned on the left. The difference is that this one is only using the align parameter, not the style text-align. You get the same basic results.

This is an example of a right-aligned paragraph. It is ragged on the left but perfectly aligned on the right.