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.
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There are 4 types of alignment that can be applied to paragraphs:
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.
To align or justify paragraphs using keyboard shortcuts:
To align or justify paragraphs using the Word Ribbon
Align and Justify commands appear on the Home tab in the Ribbon in the Paragraph group:
To align or justify paragraphs using the Paragraph dialog box:
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:
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):
Below is the Modify Style dialog box with align and justify commands:
Modify style dialog box in Word with commands to align or justify text." width="528" height="541" />
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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