Aligning Text

You can set up certain (X)HTML elements to always be aligned to the right, left, center, or justified, as desired.

To align text:

1.	Type text-align:.
2.	Type left to align the text to the left. Or type right to align the text to the right. Figure 10.33. Don't forget the hyphen in text-align. Or type center to center the text in the middle of the screen. Or type justify to align the text on both the right and left.

Tips

• If you choose to justify the text, be aware that the word spacing and letter spacing may be adversely affected. For more information, consult Controlling Spacing on page 162.

• Note that the text-align property can only be applied to block-level elements. If you want to align inline content, you must place that inline content within a block-level element like p or div to which you've applied the text-align property. Also see pages 174175.

  Figure 10.34. The table of contents and headers are centered while the paragraph text is justified.

  

• The text-align property is inherited. Its default value is supposed to depend on the document's language and writing system, but in most cases it's indiscriminately set to left.