Text Alignment

You can set the alignment of any HTML element using the text-align style rule. text-align can be used to set the alignment for a paragraph, a section of the document, or even the whole document. text-align can be used to set alignment to left, right, center, or justified.

For example, suppose we want to center a paragraph. First, we'll create a styles class called centeralign by putting the following code into the <HEAD> section of the document:

<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
<!--
.centeralign {text-align:center}
-->
</STYLE>

Now we can set any paragraph to centeralign class like this:

<P CLASS="centeralign">
Get Centered
</P>

which gives us

Get Centered

We can apply the same class to a <DIV ...> element to center a section of the page:

<DIV CLASS="centeralign">
This is a center aligned bunch of text
<P>
It stays center aligned because it is within 
a DIV which has a center aligned style. 
<P>
Each element within the center aligned DIV 
inherits the center aligned style.
</DIV>

which gives us

This is a center aligned bunch of text

It stays center aligned because it is within a DIV which has a center aligned style.

Each element within the center aligned DIV inherits the center aligned style.

If we want to center everyting on the page, the easiest thing to do is to apply the style rull to the <BODY ...> element instead of using a class. So, to enter the whole page we would simply put the following style in the <HEAD> section of the document. No further code is needed:

<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
<!--
BODY {text-align:center}
-->
</STYLE>

which is used in this page.

The same concepts can be applies to text-align:left, text-align:right, and text-align:justify (discussed in more detail in the next page). So, for example, we could rigt-align a paragraph by first copying this code into the <HEAD> section of the document:

<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
<!--
.rightalign {text-align:right}
-->
</STYLE>

and then applying the class to a paragraph:

<P CLASS="rightalign">
Get Right.
</P>

which gives us

Get Right.