Left, Right, Centered, or Justified? Centeredfaculty.ccbcmd.edu/~dciccarelli/144/s17paraalign_handout.pdf · 2014. 10. 23. · the bike up adds back pain to an already undignified

Paragraph Alignment

Debby CiccarelliCCBC | ADiM

Left, Right, Centered, or Justified?

• Paragraph alignment affects readability, eye movement, and visual alignment on a page

• Base your alignment choice on

• the amount of text

• the space available

• the balance of the page

Centered

Centered aligned paragraphs

• are placed equidistant from the left and right margin

• have a ragged left and right edge

• are difficult to read in large quantities

Only use centering for small amounts of text in simple designs.

Left Aligned (flush left)

Left aligned paragraphs

• are evenly aligned along the left side

• have a ragged right edge

• ease readability

Flush left is usually safe, though the ragged edge should be adjusted when there are strange shapes or uneven lines.

Right Aligned (flush right)

Right aligned paragraphs

• are evenly aligned along the right side

• have a ragged left edge

• readability suffers when used for more than a few lines

Flush right can be used for small paragraphs, though careful attention should be paid to the ragged left edge, to make sure it is pleasing in its shape.

Justified

Justified paragraphs

• are evenly aligned along both the left and right side - words are spaced apart on each line to create the clean left and right sides

• rivers [visible holes or gaps ] can form in paragraph that are visually displeasing, and affect readability

Justified should be used only when paragraphs are carefully edited to remove rivers and too much hyphenation.