Text align justify word

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  .

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  .

Apply Left, Center, Right or Justify Alignment to Text in Microsoft Word

by Avantix Learning Team | Updated April 13, 2022

Applies to: Microsoft^® Word^® 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021 and 365 (Windows)

You can align or justify text or other content in Word in several ways including using keyboard shortcuts, selecting commands in the Ribbon, using the Paragraph dialog box or modifying a style. It’s important to note that alignment or justification is paragraph formatting so applies to entire paragraphs. You can align text or inline graphics in paragraphs that are followed by a hard return (you pressed Enter or Return).

To see where paragraphs have been created in a Word document, it’s helpful to turn on Show/Hide ¶ on the Home tab in the Ribbon.

In this article, we’ll review 4 different ways to change horizontal alignment or justification in Word documents.

Recommended article: How to Insert a Line in Word (3+ Ways)

Do you want to learn more about Microsoft Word? Check out our virtual classroom or in-person Word courses >

There are 4 types of alignment that can be applied to paragraphs:

• Align left – aligns text or inline graphics with the left margin or indent
• Center – centers text or inline graphics between the left and right margins or indents
• Align right – aligns text or inline graphics with the right margin or indent
• Justify – distributes text evenly between the left and right margins or indents

A paragraph aligns within the indents (indent markers appear on the Ruler). The indents may be different from the margins. Paragraphs are also entered in cells in tables and each paragraph in a cell may have different indents and alignment settings.

1. Align or justify using keyboard shortcuts

To align or justify paragraphs using keyboard shortcuts:

• Align left – select the paragraph(s) and press Ctrl + L to align to the left.
• Align right – select the paragraph(s) and press Ctrl + R to align to the right.
• Align center – select the paragraph(s) and press Ctrl + E to align center.
• Justify – select the paragraph(s) and press Ctrl + J to justify.

2. Align or justify using the Ribbon

To align or justify paragraphs using the Word Ribbon

1. Select the paragraph(s) to which you want to apply alignment or justification. If you would like to select all paragraphs, press Ctrl + A.
2. Click the Home tab in the Ribbon and then click Align Left, Center, Align Right or Justify in the Paragraph group.

Align and Justify commands appear on the Home tab in the Ribbon in the Paragraph group:

3. Align or justify using the Paragraph dialog box

To align or justify paragraphs using the Paragraph dialog box:

1. Select the paragraph(s) to which you want to apply alignment or justification. If you would like to select all paragraphs, press Ctrl + A.
2. Right-click and select Paragraph. The Paragraph dialog box appears.
3. From the Alignment drop-down menu, select Left, Center, Right or Justify.
4. Click OK.

You can also display the Paragraph dialog box by clicking the Home tab in the Ribbon and then clicking the dialog box launcher on the bottom right of the Paragraph group.

The Paragraph dialog box includes a drop-down menu to select Alignment:

4. Align or justify by modifying a style

When you create a new blank document, it starts out using the Normal style which contains default paragraph and character formatting.

If you want to apply alignment or justification to multiple paragraphs throughout a document (such as a heading), you can modify a style (such as Heading 1).

To change the alignment for a heading style (such as Heading 1):

1. Click in a paragraph using the heading style (typically applied through the Home tab in the Ribbon).
2. Click the Home tab in the Ribbon.
3. In the Styles group, right-click the heading style. A dialog box appears.
4. Click Format. A drop-down menu appears.
5. Click Paragraph. The Paragraph dialog box appears.
6. From the Alignment drop-down menu, select Center or your preferred alignment.
7. Click OK twice.

Below is the Modify Style dialog box with align and justify commands:

There may be issues if you modify alignment or justification in the Normal style since other styles are based on this style by default. Cells in tables would likely be affected and so would other styles that are based on the Normal style (such as Header, Footer and Heading styles). Paragraphs using these styles would then inherit the alignment or justification (unless alignment or justification has been specifically modified in these styles). If you are comfortable using styles, you could create your own style or modify a different Word style to avoid this issue.

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MS-Word is a word processing application that provides many powerful tools, these tools provide a great advantage to the user. It is used to create documents like letters, articles, etc. MS-Word is an interactive and very user-friendly application. It has been developed by Microsoft Corporation Ltd.

Text Alignments

This is one of the features provided by MS-Word to its user. This feature is used by the user to align text or paragraphs so that it gives a good look or a kind of systematic look. There are 4 types of text alignments which are left-aligned, center-aligned, right-aligned, and justified. (All 4 are shown in the below image.

Left-Aligned Text

A paragraph or a text is left-aligned when that paragraph or text is aligned evenly along the left margin of the page in MS-Word. Now, we will learn step by step with the help of a diagram to make a paragraph text left-aligned.

Step 1: First open MS-Word on your PC.

Step 2: Now, Open the document or create a new one in which you want to perform this operation.

Step 3: Now, select the paragraph text which you want to make Left-aligned.

Step 4: Now, go to the “Home” tab and click on that. (As shown in the below image)

Step 5: Now, go to the “Paragraph” section in the “Home” tab and click on the Left-Align text button. 

Step 6: The paragraph text is aligned to left successfully.

Alternate way or using shortcut key:

The shortcut key for Left-Aligned Text is “Ctrl + L”.

Now, we can use a shortcut key for the same. Let us see this also step by step:

Step 1: First open MS-Word on your PC.

Step 2: Now, Open the document or create a new one in which you want to perform this operation.

Step 3: Now, select the paragraph text which you want to make Left-aligned.

Step 4: Now, use the Shortcut key which is “Ctrl +L “.

Step 5: The paragraph text is aligned to left successfully.

Center Aligned Text

A paragraph’s text or a text will be center-aligned if the paragraph or text is in the center of the left and right margins of the page in MS-Word. Now, we will learn step by step with the help of a diagram to make a paragraph text center-aligned.

Step 1: First open MS-Word on your PC.

Step 2: Now, Open the document or create a new one in which you want to perform this operation.

Step 3: Now, select the paragraph text which you want to make Center-aligned.

Step 4: Now, go to “Home” tab and click on that. (As shown in the below image)

Step 5: Now, go to the “Paragraph” section in the “Home” tab and click on the Center-Align text button.

Step 6: The paragraph text is aligned to the center successfully.

Alternate way or using shortcut key:

The shortcut key for Center-Aligned Text is “Ctrl + E”.

Now, we can use a shortcut key for the same. Let us see this also step by step:

Step 1: First open MS-Word on your PC.

Step 2: Now, Open the document or create a new one in which you want to perform this operation.

Step 3: Now, select the paragraph text which you want to make Center-aligned.

Step 4: Now, use the Shortcut key which is “Ctrl +E“.

Step 5: The paragraph text is aligned to the Center successfully.

Right-Aligned Text

A paragraph’s text is said to be right-aligned when it is aligned evenly along the right margin of the page in MS-Word. Now, we will learn step by step with the help of a diagram to make a paragraph text right-aligned.

Step 1: First open MS-Word on your PC.

Step 2: Now, Open the document or create a new one in which you want to perform this operation.

Step 3: Now, select the paragraph text which you want to make Center-aligned.

Step 4: Now, go to the “Home” tab and click on that. (As shown in the below image)

Step 5: Now, go to the “Paragraph” section in the “Home” tab and click on the Right-Align text button.

Step 6: The paragraph text is aligned to the center successfully.

Alternate way or using shortcut key:

The shortcut key for Right-Aligned Text is “Ctrl + R”.

Now, we can use a shortcut key for the same. Let us see this also step by step:

Step 1: First open MS-Word on your PC.

Step 2: Now, Open the document or create a new one in which you want to perform this operation.

Step 3: Now, select the paragraph text which you want to make Right-aligned.

Step 4: Now, use the Shortcut key which is “Ctrl +R“.

Step 5: The paragraph text is aligned to the Right successfully.

Justified Text

A paragraph’s text is said to be justified when it is aligned evenly along both the left side and the right side margins of the page in MS-Word. Now, we will learn step by step with the help of a diagram to make a paragraph text justified.

Step 1: First open MS-Word on your PC.

Step 2: Now, Open the document or create a new one in which you want to perform this operation.

Step 3: Now, select the paragraph text which you want to make justified text.

Step 4: Now, go to the “Home” tab and click on that. (As shown in the below image)

Step 5: Now, go to the “Paragraph” section in the “Home” tab and click on Justify text button.

Step 6: The paragraph text is aligned to the Justified text successfully.

Alternate way or using shortcut key:

The shortcut key for Justified Text is “Ctrl + J”.

Now, we can use a shortcut key for the same. Let us see this also step by step:

Step 1: First open MS-Word on your PC.

Step 2: Now, Open the document or create a new one in which you want to perform this operation.

Step 3: Now, select the paragraph text which you want to make Justified Text.

Step 4: Now, use the Shortcut key which is “Ctrl +j“.

Step 5: The paragraph text is aligned to the Justified text successfully.

You create a paragraph when you press Enter key while writing a document in Word. In Word, a paragraph can be a title, heading, a single character, word, sentence, or even a blank line followed by the keyboard Enter key. Word uses ¶ marks to indicate paragraphs in your document.

A paragraph has a formatting mark that is hidden by default. To see the paragraph mark, click ¶ icon in the Paragraph group on the Home tab. See, How to show formatting marks?

Microsoft Word provides paragraph-formatting tools in Paragraph groups located inside the Home tab and Layout tab. You can adjust the paragraph alignment, line spacing, paragraph space before and after, etc. through commands available in the Paragraph group on the Home tab. The Paragraph group in the Layout tab enables you to control the indent and spacing for the paragraph.

Paragraph Formatting Tools on Home Tab

1. Bulleted List
   See also, Bullets and Numbering tutorial.
2. Numbered List
3. Multilevel List
   See also, Understanding Multilevel List dialog box and Multilevel Headings.
4. Decrease Indent
   Remove the extra space (half-inch) to the left of the entire pargraph.
5. Increase Indent
   Adds half-inch extra space to the left of the entire pargraph.
6. Sort
   Sort hedings, paragraphs, lists or tables.
7. Show/Hide Formatting Symbols
8. Left Alignment
   Aligns the current paragraph (or a selection) to the left.
9. Center Alignment
   Aligns the current paragraph (or a selection) to the center of the page.
10. Right Alignment
    Aligns the current paragraph (or a selection) to the right.
11. Justified Alignment
    Lines-up text neatly on the both sides (left and right) of the current paragraph (or a selection).
12. Line and Paragraph Spacing
    Adjust the space between lines of text or between paragraphs.
13. Shading
    Apply background color to a paragraph, selected text or table cell. Click down-arrow on Shading icon to open its menu to choose a preset color or create your own color. Shading command can be apply to selected text or an entire paragraph while the Text Highlight Color command doesn’t apply to an entire paragraph.
    
    Shading command also apply the background color on paragraph-spacing.
14. Borders
    Set border to the selected text, paragraph or table.
15. Paragraph Settings (Dialog box launcher)
    Click on the Dialog Box Launcher icon to open the Paragraph dialog box. It gives you more formatting commands: Outline level, Tabs setting, Line and Page Breaks commands (we’ll discuss these commands later).

Paragraph Formatting Tools on Layout Tab

The Paragraph group on the Layout tab has two areas: Indent and Spacing. You can adjust the indentation on selected paragraphs by specifying the value in the Left and Right fields. Similarly, you can adjust the spacing on selected paragraphs by specifying the values in Before and After fields. For details follow these links:

1. How to adjust the paragraph indentation
2. How to adjust the line and paragraph spacing

Text Alignment

Paragraph alignment controls how the text aligns to the page margins. There are four types of alignment options in Word: Left, Center, Right, and Justify.

Left Alignment

It is the default paragraph alignment and is used by the majority of people. To align the paragraph to the left:

1. Select text.
2. Click the Align Left command on the Paragraph group under the Home tab to align text to the left.
3. Or press Ctrl+L keyboard shortcut.

Center Alignment

Center alignment is mostly used for Heading or Title that begins on a new document page. To center a text:

1. Select text.
2. Click the Center command on the Paragraph group under the Home tab to center text on the page.
3. Or press Ctrl+E keyboard shortcut.

Right Alignment

Right alignment position the text to the right edge of the document, this alignment mostly use for signatures or citation credits. Follow these steps to right-align text on a document:

1. Select text.
2. Click the Align Right command on the Paragraph group under the Home tab to align text to the right.
3. Or press Ctrl+R keyboard shortcut.

Justify Text Alignment

The Justify alignment places the text to both edges (left and right) by adding some additional space between words. To justify text, follow these steps:

1. Select text.
2. Click the Justify command on the Paragraph group under the Home tab to justify text on the page..
3. Or press Ctrl+L (or Ctrl+J) keyboard shortcut.