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 entire paragraphs or an entire document
  • Four alignments that are used in Microsoft Word:

    • Leftalignment (default) – each line begins at the left edge of the page and body text is typically left-aligned
      • Keyboard shortcut: COMMAND(⌘)+{
    • Centeralignment – bring the text to the middle of the page which is used for titles
      • Keyboard shortcut: COMMAND(⌘)+ |
    • Rightalignment – is used for specific elements such as a page footer
      • Keyboard shortcut: COMMAND(⌘)+ }
    • 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: COMMAND(⌘)+ J

 

Apply Alignment and Justify for Document

1.   Select paragraphs or an entire document

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

 

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