justification

Question

I use Microsoft 10.  I have the paragraphs set to justify.  Sometimes they do justify.  Sometimes they do not.  Also, when I am typing a paragraph and the line wraps to the next line, it doesn't indent automatically and I have to go to the beginning of each line and tab each line.  Sometimes when I do this, the line before loses it's justification.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Good point, if the sample paragraph already has a lot of local formatting applied, you should clear that first before adding the indent and justification. Ctrl + Q is the keyboard shortcut for clearing paragraph formatting, while Ctrl + Spacebar clears font formatting.

Answer 2

You have to press all 4 keys at the same time, not in sequence. As an alternative, you can click on the Styles List Opener in the lower right corner of the Styles group:

On the Styles list, the Manage Styles button is at the bottom. It's not labelled, you have to float your mouse over it to see the Manage Styles name:

Answer 3

Hi Cmouski,

John's answer is correct, however, I find sometimes the results are not what I expected either. This is some bug in the the Styles code (as far as I'm concerned--among other major annoyances). Try clearing the paragraph formatting before applying John's steps. 

To clear the paragraph formatting

• On the Home tab, Font group, click Clear Formatting (the command button that has the letter A in upper case, followed by a small a and an eraser.)

See if that works. I've had to do that in the past to clear some sort of hidden formatting "hangover" that Word has attached to a paragraph. Hope this works!

• Lee

Answer 4

This did not work for me.  When I pressed alt, ctrl, shift, s, nothing happened except to add "s" to the paragraph I was in.  I did look at change styles, but it did not have manage styles or new style.  Thanks for trying to help though!

Answer 5

You'll get more reliable results if you set up Styles that are justified and indented. Then you apply the style to your text and they assume those characteristics. 

A simple way to set up a style is to start with one of your paragraphs that is already formatted with an indent and justified text. If you open the Paragraph format dialog box, Alignment should be set to Justified and in the Indentation section, Special should be set to First line followed by the amount of indent you prefer. Select this paragraph, then:

1. Press Alt + Ctrl + Shift + S to open the Styles list.
2. At the bottom of the Styles list, click on the Manage Styles button.
3. Select the Edit tab in Manage Styles, then click on New Style.
4. Give the style a name you'll remember.
5. Choose the New documents based on this template option.
6. Check Add to Quick Style List. Click on OK.
7. You're back to the Manage Styles dialog. Select New documents based on this template. Click on OK.

Now you should see your indented and justified style in the Quick Style gallery on the Home tab. You can select text, click on this style and it will be applied uniformly. Since you've added the style to your template, it should be available whenever you are creating similar documents.