Aligning Paragraphs

Alignment refers to the way the right and left edges of a paragraph line up along the right and left margins of your document. Word gives you four alignment choicesleft, centered, right, and justifiedas shown in Figure 7.1.

Figure 7.1. Word gives you four ways to align your paragraphs.

By default, Word uses left alignment, which produces a straight left edge and a ragged right edge. Left alignment is usually the best choice for body text in standard business documents such as letters , memos, reports , and so on. Center alignment centers your text horizontally between the right and left margins. You use centering for headings and other short lines of text. Right alignment lines up your text at the right margin and gives it a ragged left edge. This type of alignment works well for short lines of text that you want to appear on the far-right edge of the page. Finally, you may occasionally want to use justification. This type of alignment makes both the right and left edges of a paragraph straight. Word makes slight adjustments to the spacing between characters to produce the straight right edge. Justified text can be a little hard on the eyes because the spacing is uneven , but it is appropriate in some situations. For example, text that is indented from both sides or arranged in columns often looks better if it's justified.

To change alignment using the Formatting toolbar, follow these steps:

1. Click in the paragraph in which you want to change alignment (or select multiple adjacent paragraphs to change the alignment of all of them).

2. Click the Align Left, Center, Align Right , or Justify button on the Formatting toolbar (see Figure 7.2).

   Figure 7.2. Click one of the alignment buttons to change alignment.

   

You can change paragraph alignment with these keyboard shortcuts: Press Ctrl+L to left align, Ctrl+E to center, Ctrl+R to right align, or Ctrl+J to justify. (Yes, using Ctrl+E for centering is a bit odd. Microsoft had to use the second letter in the word center because the shortcut Ctrl+C is already taken by the Copy command.)

The paragraph alignment options are also available in the Paragraph dialog box. Choose Format, Paragraph, click the Indents and Spacing tab, choose the desired option in the Alignment list, and click OK. The only reason to use this method is if you happen to be in the Paragraph dialog box already to change some other setting. Otherwise, it's faster to use the alignment toolbar buttons or the keyboard shortcuts.