Since the days of typewriters, we’ve been center-aligning headings, and most everything else. With computers now widespread, and combined variety of fonts that even professional designers from a decade ago couldn’t imagine having, it's time to change.
Most people are aware of the different ways of aligning text: left, right, center and justified. Left alignment, of course involves aligning text along the left margin, right alignment along the right margin, center with all the text centered along an axis, and justified, where the words are spaced so that the text aligns along both left and right margins. Most people left align body text, and center align headings. This made sense in the days of typewriters, when the only font available was a mono spaced font, with no bold or italic settings. With the variety of fonts available today, there is a better way.
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left align:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Etiam adipiscing, pede id faucibus cursus, risus leo
facilisis erat, in scelerisque ligula ante sed neque. Suspendisse orci est, pellentesque eu, vulputate
suscipit, vestibulum non, odio.
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right align:
orem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Etiam adipiscing, pede id faucibus cursus, risus leo
facilisis erat, in scelerisque ligula ante sed neque. Suspendisse orci est, pellentesque eu, vulputate
suscipit, vestibulum non, odio.
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center align:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Etiam adipiscing, pede id faucibus cursus, risus leo
facilisis erat, in scelerisque ligula ante sed neque. Suspendisse orci est, pellentesque eu, vulputate
suscipit, vestibulum non, odio.
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justified align:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Etiam adipiscing,
pede id faucibus cursus, risus leo facilisis erat, in scelerisque ligula ante sed neque. Suspendisse orci est,
pellentesque eu, vulputate suscipit, vestibulum non, odio.
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The key to using alignment effectively is to align everything along a strong margin. This makes everything easier to read. The primary reason for this is that when we are reading text, the eyes will follow the text to the end of the line, and then immediately begin searching for the beginning of the next line. If everything is aligned along the same margin, our eyes don’t have to hunt around looking for the beginning of the next item, whether it be text, an image or a table of numbers. If the alignment is uneven, the eyes will constantly have to readjust as they search for the next item in the text. This can get pretty tiring, especially with long lines of text.
In most cases, you’d want to align everything—headings, body text, images and captions—along the left margin. (Of course, in the case of languages such as Arabic and Hebrew, where the text flows from right to left, right alignment is preferred.) Right alignment is most useful for small sections of text, such as title sheets for thesis papers, and captions for images (again, ensuring that the text, images and other objects are aligned along the same margin, as much as possible).
Center alignment presents a formal sedate look. This is useful for formal wedding invitations and poems, but not very useful for the vast majority of written material (and this includes advertisements!). Since the margin keeps shifting, the eyes take a while to locate the beginning of the next line of text, and after a while this can be very tiring. If you do decide to use centered alignment make it obvious that the text is centered i.e. make sure that the lines of text are different enough in length.
Aligning along an axis
Sometimes it’s nice to align everything along an axis rather than a margin (see figure below). This comes in handy when you have headings placed next to the text. In this case, the axis becomes the margin.
| Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Etiam adipiscing, pede id faucibus cursus, risus leo facilisis erat, in scelerisque ligula ante sed neque. Suspendisse orci est, pellentesque eu, vulputate suscipit, vestibulum non, odio. Nam vulputate lacus ac orci. | |
| Etiam velit dui, consequat non, scelerisque id, eleifend ac, felis. Morbi metus. Aliquam placerat aliquet dolor. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Quisque at ipsum. Vivamus pharetra, ligula sit amet sollicitudin accumsan. | |
| Curabitur adipiscing, mi vel volutpat vulputate, enim mauris ullamcorper sapien, sed tristique lorem nulla quis purus. Donec commodo, leo vitae aliquam condimentum, arcu dui fermentum elit, id ornare urna nulla vitae dolor. Integer egestas. |
In Microsoft Word, the easiest way to achieve this effect is to use tables. Create a two column table, and place the heading in the first column, and each section of text in the second column. Right-align the headings in the first column and left align the text in the second column. This usually works best if the headings are of widely varying lengths, instead of being similar in length. If the headings are similar in length, left-aligning the headings makes for a better impression.