Having alignment issues in Justify

Question

How to eliminate large spaces between words in justfiy setting on word on mac. Justify spreads out a sentence with large spaces between words.

Answer 1

Microsoft's justification algorithm is crummy. As you've noted, it only adds spaces between word, not between letters.

Here's a macro you can run that will put the document into Word 2010 compatibility mode, then apply WordPerfect-style justification, which adds space between letters as well:

Sub ApplyWPJustify()
    With ActiveDocument
        .SetCompatibilityMode wdWord2010
        .Compatibility(wdWPJustification) = True
    End With
End Sub

Please note, after you run this, if the document is upsaved to a current Word version, the justification will revert to the standard poor spacing.

Or use left-aligned text, which has been shown to be more readable that justified text.

Answer 2

I am wondering if you are seeing distributed alignment rather than justified? The screen shot below shows the behavior of a distributed text paragraph:

   

See if you can fix it by selecting the text and then press Command+J to (re-)apply standard justified text.

Answer 3

Hi, Howard Maffucci

This usually happens when Word is trying to force a short line to stretch across the full page width. It can also happen if the line ends with a manual line break instead of a normal paragraph break.

Here are some suggestions you can try:

First, turn on formatting marks by clicking the Paragraph mark (¶) button on the Home tab. If you see a bent arrow at the end of the problem line, delete it and press Return normally. Manual line breaks can make justified text spread words too far apart.

It is also recommended that you turn on hyphenation: go to Layout > Hyphenation > Automatic. This lets Word split longer words at the end of a line, so it does not need to create such large gaps between words.

Thank you for your patience in reading, I hope this information has been helpful to you. 

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