Align and Justify Paragraphs

Understand Alignment and Justifying feature

  • Alignment is the horizontal positioning of text on the page, and it is always applied to the entire paragraph or an entire document

  • There are four alignments that are used in Microsoft Word

  • Left alignment (default) – each line begins at the left edge of the page and body text is typically left-aligned

    • Keyboard shortcut: CTRL + L

  • Center alignment – bring the text to the middle of the page which is used for titles

    • Keyboard shortcut: CTRL + E

  • Right alignment – is used for specific elements such as a page footer

    • Keyboard shortcut: CTRL + R

  • Justify – adds extra spaces between the words in order to give the readers a consistent right margin which is often used newspapers, or newsletters

    • Keyboard shortcut: CTRL + J

  • Tips for using Alignment and Justification:

    • Use Center and Right alignments to make titles, headings, and page elements stand out from body text

    • Use Justification for crisp, clean look for paragraph

    • Use Left alignment for most of body text in the document


Apply alignment and justify for document

  • Select paragraphs or an entire of document

  • Do any of the following:

    • Go to Home tab > Paragraph group > select desired alignment options or justify option

    • To apply quickly Center alignment, right-click on the selected paragraph or entire of document > select Center alignment from shortcut menu