Align or justify text

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Text alignment is a paragraph formatting attribute that determines the appearance of the text in a whole paragraph. For example, in a paragraph that is left-aligned (the most common alignment), text is aligned with the left margin. In a paragraph that is justified, text is aligned with both margins.

Align text left

Center text

 Align text right

 Justify text

 Distribute text

Newer versionsOffice 2011

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Align text left, center, or right

1. Click anywhere in the paragraph that you want to align.

2. On the Home tab, in the Paragraph group, do one of the following:

To	Click
Align text left	Align Text Left
Center text	Center Text
Align text right	Align Text Right

Justify text

When you justify text, space is added between words so that both edges of each line are aligned with both margins. The last line in the paragraph is aligned left.

1. Click anywhere in the paragraph that you want to justify.

2. On the Home tab, in the Paragraph group, click Justify Text  .

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Align text left, center, or right

1. Click anywhere in the paragraph that you want to align.

2. On the Home tab, under Paragraph, do one of the following:

To	Click
Align text left	Align Text Left
Center text	Center Text
Align text right	Align Text Right

Justify text

When you justify text, space is added between words so that both edges of each line are aligned with both margins. The last line in the paragraph is aligned left.

1. Click anywhere in the paragraph that you want to justify.

2. On the Home tab, under Paragraph, click Justify Text  .

Distribute text

When you distribute text, space is added between characters so that both edges of each line are aligned with both margins. The last line in the paragraph is distributed as well.

1. Click anywhere in the paragraph where you want to distribute text.

2. On the Home tab, under Paragraph, click Distributed Text  .

See also

Adjust indents and spacing

Align objects

Align text or adjust the margins within a text box