Aligning Text in LibreOffice Writer
Ducks in a Row

© synell, 123RF.com
To get professional publishing results, here are a few tips and tricks to get the most out of LibreOffice Writer’s alignment options.
Just because an option in LibreOffice Writer is easy to choose does not mean that it is easy to use. Take, for example, alignment, or how characters are arranged between the left and the right margin on a line. A single click on the Alignment tab of a paragraph style will set the alignment to right, center, left (ragged right), or justified (i.e., evenly distributed between the margins). Yet to use any alignment takes design knowledge and, sometimes, extra effort as well (Figure 1).

Right Alignment
Aligning letters to the right margin is used the least. Right alignment is used only in layout, such as a title page. A basic rule of layout is that related information, such as the lines of a mailing address should have a common alignment. For instance, an address on a letter is traditionally right aligned. You often find a right alignment on a brochure or diagram as well. Generally, though, only a few lines in a document are likely to have a right alignment, for the simple reason that most European languages read from left to right, and an uneven left margin is harder to read and just looks wrong to most people.
Center Alignment
In the long gone, unlamented days of typewriters, titles were often center aligned, for the simple reason that the options for differentiating the title from the main text were few. Today, however, a title can easily be a different size or font, and a center alignment, like a right one, is only seen in more elaborate layouts.
Left vs. Justified Alignment
Left and justified alignments are the most common choices in layout. However, which one to use depends on the context.
For decades, left alignment was the default on typewriters. Only late model typewriters with a few kilobytes of memory ever managed justified lines. For the most part, industrial typesetting machines alone offered justification -- and even they often required manual tweaks to look their best. Consequently, in many people’s minds, justification is still the main indicator of professional design. Armed with this expectation, today many can be loudly scornful of left alignment.
However, for professional typographers, the choice is more complicated. To start with, the algorithms for justifying lines of text can be very poor, and heavy editing and revision can leave justified lines a mess with unsightly variations in the spaces between characters and words. You can see a small sample of the difficulties by investigating Writer’s options for the last line of a justified paragraph: Start (left-aligned), Center, and Justified. To be fair, some tools, including Writer, have improved greatly over the years, but, in others, users are better off avoiding justification altogether.
Yet even in Writer, justification is not always the best choice. Faced with short sentences, such as an instruction manual with numbered steps or a table with narrow columns, justification can struggle to produce a decent-looking page (Figure 2). Sometimes, a change of fonts, font size, or character spacing on the Position tab helps, but too often such modifications can compromise the overall look of the design by introducing too many changes in the default appearance. Sometimes, a left alignment may also be unsuitable (Figure 3), yet, by contrast, a left alignment tends to look better than justification, even before tweaking. Just as importantly, if a document will be frequently revised, then a left alignment can mean less maintenance. Besides, some designers will deliberately use a left alignment simply out of nostalgia for typewriters. Fortunately, the great advantage of word processors is that changes are easily made, so you can experiment until you find the best alignment for your purposes and aesthetics.


Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you've found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
2024 Open Source Professionals Job Survey Now Open
Share your expectations regarding open source jobs.
-
Arch Linux 2023.12.01 Released with a Much-Improved Installer
If you've ever wanted to install Arch Linux, now is your time. With the latest release, the archinstall script vastly simplifies the process.
-
Zorin OS 17 Beta Available for Testing
The upcoming version of Zorin OS includes plenty of improvements to take your PC to a whole new level of user-friendliness.
-
Red Hat Migrates RHEL from Xorg to Wayland
If you've been wondering when Xorg will finally be a thing of the past, wonder no more, as Red Hat has made it clear.
-
PipeWire 1.0 Officially Released
PipeWire was created to take the place of the oft-troubled PulseAudio and has finally reached the 1.0 status as a major update with plenty of improvements and the usual bug fixes.
-
Rocky Linux 9.3 Available for Download
The latest version of the RHEL alternative is now available and brings back cloud and container images for ppc64le along with plenty of new features and fixes.
-
Ubuntu Budgie Shifts How to Tackle Wayland
Ubuntu Budgie has yet to make the switch to Wayland but with a change in approaches, they're finally on track to making it happen.
-
TUXEDO's New Ultraportable Linux Workstation Released
The TUXEDO Pulse 14 blends portability with power, thanks to the AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS CPU.
-
AlmaLinux Will No Longer Be "Just Another RHEL Clone"
With the release of AlmaLinux 9.3, the distribution will be built entirely from upstream sources.
-
elementary OS 8 Has a Big Surprise in Store
When elementary OS 8 finally arrives, it will not only be based on Ubuntu 24.04 but it will also default to Wayland for better performance and security.