Aligning Text on the Page

When it comes to aligning text, Word 2000 makes a distinction between aligning text in paragraphs with respect to the margins and aligning all the text on the page with respect to the borders of the page. How to align text is the subject of this section.

Aligning Text with Respect to the Left and Right Margins

So important is aligning text with respect to the left and right margins, Word 2000 offers buttons on the Formatting toolbar for doing it: the Align Left, Center, Align Right, and Justify buttons. Each aligns text in a different way, as shown in Figure 7-8.

Figure 8: The four ways to align text: right-aligning, left-aligning, centering, and justifying

To align paragraph text in a document, follow these steps:

1.      Select the paragraphs you want to align. If you are aligning a single paragraph, all you have to do is click it.

2.      Click an alignment button on the Formatting toolbar:

·        Align Left Aligns text with the left margin or left side of the column.

·        Center Centers the text between the margins or between the column boundaries.

·        Align Right Aligns text with the right margin or right side of the column.

·        Justify Aligns text with both the left and right margins and left and right sides of the column.

TIP: It isn't necessary to select an entire paragraph when you want to align text or give any command that pertains to paragraphs, for that matter. All you have to do is put the cursor in the paragraph or, to select more than one paragraph, select part of each one.

You can also control text alignment by way of the Paragraph dialog box:

1.      Choose Format | Paragraph.

2.      On the Indents and Spacing tab of the Paragraph dialog box, click the Alignment down-arrow and choose an alignment option: Left, Center, Right, or Justify.

3.      Click OK.