InDesign

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Align or justify text

Text can be aligned with one or both edges (or insets) of a text frame. Text is said to be justified when it is aligned with both edges. You can choose to justify all text in a paragraph excluding the last line (Justify Left or Justify Right), or you can justify text in a paragraph including the last line (Justify All). When you have only a few characters on the last line, you may want to use a special end-of-story character and create a flush space.

Justify Left (left) and Justify All (right)

Note: When you justify all lines of text and you are using the Adobe Paragraph Composer, InDesign shifts text to ensure that the paragraph has consistent text density and is visually appealing. You can fine-tune spacing in justified text.
  1. Select text.
  2. Click one of the Alignment buttons (Align Left, Align Center, Align Right, Left Justify, Center Justify, Right Justify and Full Justify) in the Paragraph panel or Control panel.
  3. (Optional) Click Align Towards Spine or Align Away From Spine.

    When you apply Align Towards Spine to a paragraph, text on a left-hand page is right-aligned, but when the same text flows onto (or if the frame is moved to) a right-hand page, it becomes left aligned. Similarly, when you apply Align Away from Spine to a paragraph, text on a left-hand page is left-aligned, while text on a right-hand page is right-aligned.

If you want the left side of a line of text to be left-aligned and the right side to be right-aligned, position the insertion point where you want to right-align the text, press Tab, and then right-align the rest of the line.