Paragraph Settings: Alignment

A paragraph can be centered, flush left or flush right and it can be justified or not justified. These settings can be changed by pressing buttons on the main Nota Bene screen, by using keyboard shortcuts, by using the menus, or by using the action line. When you change the settings using any of these methods, a command is inserted in the file and it affects the document from the insertion point forward until another command is inserted which again changes the alignment. If you define a block of text before issuing the command, the change will apply only to the highlighted text. The alignment commands can be viewed and edited in Show Codes View and they can be inserted using the action line. See Alignment Commands.

To use the menus to change the alignment.

1	Click Format, Paragraph. The Paragraph Settings dialog will open.

2	Click the Alignment tab.

3	Click the radio button for Left, Center or Right. Observe the Preview window for an indication of how each of these options affects your text.

4	If you want your text fully justified, click the Justify check box. Observe the Preview window for an indication of how clicking on Justify affects your text

5	Click the Apply to field and choose one of the following options

•	Insertion Point Forward - selected alignment is applied from the place of cursor to the end of the document

•	Paragraph Forward - selected alignment is applied from the current paragraph to the end of the document

•	Current Paragraph - selected alignment is applied to the current paragraph only

•	Document Default - selected alignment is made the default alignment for the entire document

•	Selected Text - selected alignment is applied to the currently highlighted block of text

Click OK

Toolbar buttons: Toolbar buttons are available on the Formatting toolbar at the top of the Nota Bene screen. Click the Left Align, Center, Right Align or Justify buttons to change the alignment. The Justify button is a toggle -- it will justify text that is not justified, or remove justification if text is already justified. To identify any toolbar button, move your cursor to a button and pause. The name of the button will appear.

Keyboard shortcuts: The keyboard shortcuts shown below can be used to change the alignment.

Ctrl+L Flush left -- inserts FL (Flush Left) command

Ctrl+R Flush right -- inserts FR (Flush Right) command

Ctrl+E Center -- inserts FC (Force Center) command

Ctrl+J Justify/No Justify (toggle) -- inserts JU (Justify) command, or if text is already justified, inserts NJ (No Justify) command.

Justify one line: The LJ (Line Justify) command can be used to create three separately aligned regions per line (left, centered, right), so that text can be entered that is flush left, centered, and flush right on the same line. This option is also available through the menus (Format, Paragraph, then select the Alignment tab), and it is used when you set up headers or footers through the menus. For information on using this command and the other alignment commands, see Alignment Commands. Leaders can also be used to separate text that is flush left from text that is flush right on the same line. Two or more leaders on the same line will equalize the amount of space between words or small blocks of text on the same line. For more information, see Leader or Leader: keyboard shortcut or Leader: LD command.

Justify last line: The last line of a paragraph can be justified by pressing Alt+Enter at the end of the line. Justification must be on.

Justification options: You can control the appearance of justified text by adjust whether extra space is added between words or between letters in the words. See Justification Options.