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About this lesson
Paragraph format and alignment is important to proper document layout.
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Exercise files
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Basic Paragraph Formats.docx58 KB Basic Paragraph Formats - Solution.docx
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Quick reference
Basic Paragraph Formats
Paragraph format and alignment is important to proper document layout.
Home Ribbon, Paragraph Group
When to use
Use the Paragraph Alignment buttons when you want text to align to the left edge, right edge, both edges, or center align.
Instructions
Click the line of text that you want to apply Paragraph Format to.
Click the Left Align button so the text is flush to the left margin. This is the default paragraph alignment (meaning, it’s how the computer displays it if you do not make changes.)
Click the Center Align button so the text is centered between both margins. Used to align titles over a report or story.
Click the Right Align button so the text is flush to the right margin. Use when you want text flush right on the document.
Click the Justify Align button so the text is flush to both margins. Used in a formal business or report document.
- 00:04 In this lesson, we're gonna work on Paragraph Formats.
- 00:07 On the Home ribbon there's an entire section named Paragraph.
- 00:11 We're gonna focus this lesson on the Left Align, the Center, the Right Align,
- 00:16 and the fully Justify.
- 00:17 So we're gonna practice this,
- 00:18 please notice also when you put your mouse on those buttons, it gives you a tool tip.
- 00:22 CTRL+L for left align, CTRL+E for center, CTRL+R for
- 00:26 right align, and CTRL+J of course, for justify.
- 00:30 Here we go.
- 00:30 Now, in this particular case, the first paragraph, align left.
- 00:34 It is by default, already aligned left.
- 00:37 Now maybe I want to hit my Indent or my Tab key to indent that first line.
- 00:41 Notice that every consecutive line underneath is flushed to the left margin,
- 00:46 so it is technically aligned left.
- 00:48 There's not a lot we can do there.
- 00:49 The next one is center.
- 00:51 We're going to center this paragraph for whatever reason, okay?
- 00:54 So I have the choice, I can come up here and hit this Center button, or
- 00:58 I can press Ctrl+E.
- 01:00 I'll go ahead and hit the button, since I'm already there.
- 01:02 And there it's centered.
- 01:02 Now that doesn't look very good, but
- 01:05 a title of a story would absolutely be centered.
- 01:08 So I'm gonna select that line just by clicking into it.
- 01:13 I could come over here and select the entire line in the margin, but
- 01:16 this is a paragraph feature, meaning you can just click into the line,
- 01:19 it will affect the entire thing to the hard return.
- 01:22 So I'll press Ctrl+E, and that will center the title of the story.
- 01:25 And I just mentioned it'll affect everything until the hard return.
- 01:29 How do you know where those hard returns are?
- 01:31 Well, again, in the paragraph section up above,
- 01:33 there's this little paragraph icon called the show-hide button.
- 01:36 When I turn that on, you can see these little paragraph marks at the end.
- 01:41 So everything, no matter what paragraph you click into,
- 01:44 all of these paragraph features will affect the entire thing until it sees one
- 01:49 of these paragraph hard returns.
- 01:51 It often confuses people when I have those on, so I'll turn that off for
- 01:54 now, but just so you know, as a habit,
- 01:56 I usually work in Microsoft Word with my show hide buttons on.
- 01:59 I like to see all of the codes in the background.
- 02:03 Now let's go ahead and write a line in the next paragraph.
- 02:06 Now what's gonna happen here, notice I have a flush left and a jagged right line,
- 02:10 it's going to reverse that, okay?
- 02:12 So I'm gonna have a flush right and a jagged left line.
- 02:15 Let's go ahead and click on the right-align button, there we go.
- 02:18 See, a flush right edge and a jagged left.
- 02:21 Now why would I ever use that?
- 02:23 Well, sometimes I do want to set a note off to the right edge.
- 02:27 So I'm gonna go ahead and turn that on.
- 02:29 Sometimes I want a page number on the right margin.
- 02:32 Sometimes I want the date to be flush to the right margin.
- 02:35 That is when we would use the flush right margin.
- 02:38 Okay, let's go ahead with the justify.
- 02:40 Now notice, this paragraph is very normal, straight edge on the left margin and
- 02:44 a jagged edge on the right margin.
- 02:46 When you're writing a long manuscript, maybe newspaper article,
- 02:50 maybe a newsletter,
- 02:51 it's very normal to have a jagged right edge because it actually helps
- 02:55 the readers' eyes to travel to the next line if they see that jagged right edge.
- 03:00 They've proven this, this isn't me making this up.
- 03:03 They've done studies on how to help people read script easier and
- 03:07 jagged right edges is nice,
- 03:08 but in the business world, they have taken to the flush left and right, okay?
- 03:13 So that is called fully justify, and that button is right up here,
- 03:17 the fully Justify or Control+J.
- 03:20 I'm gonna go ahead and click this, click.
- 03:21 Now, notice my left edge is street along, flushed to the left margin, and
- 03:26 my right edge is flushed to the right margin.
- 03:29 It's just very proper.
- 03:31 So it's often used on a short read, like a business letter,
- 03:34 a single page business letter, the moment that business letter goes two pages,
- 03:39 I'd probably go back to the right, the jagged right edge.
- 03:42 But for a short letter looks very nice, and
- 03:45 it's generally only in formal business that we see that.
- 03:48 All right, please go ahead and practice those.
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