Aligning text in the center of a page is a common task in document editing. Whether you want a title to stand out or text to have visual balance, centering text in Google Docs is easy to do. In this guide, we’ll walk through the steps to horizontally and vertically center text on a page using Google Docs’ formatting options.
Why Would You Want to Center Text?
Before jumping into the how-to, let’s briefly go over some reasons you may want to center text in a Google Doc:
- Emphasize titles or headings – Centered text stands out more, so it’s ideal for document titles, section headers, and other text you want to highlight.
- Improve symmetry – Centering text can provide visual balance, especially if you have text flanked by equal margins on the left and right.
- Align images and tables – In addition to text, you can center images, tables, and other elements to align them on the page.
- Create worksheet-style documents – If you want questions/answers or other items to appear centered on their own lines, centering is the way to go.
How to Center Text Horizontally
Centering text horizontally between the left and right margins is simple in Google Docs. Here are the steps:
- Highlight the text you want to center. You can select a word, sentence, paragraph, or multiple blocks of text.
- Click the Align center icon in the toolbar. It looks like text centered between two vertical lines.
- Alternatively, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+E (Windows) or Cmd+Shift+E (Mac).
- The selected text will now be centered between the page margins. The rest of the document will remain left aligned unless you center additional text.
And that’s all there is to it! The text stays centered as you continue typing. If you want to return it to the default left align formatting, just highlight it and click the Align left icon in the toolbar or use the keyboard shortcut.
How to Center Text Vertically
In addition to aligning text horizontally, you may also want to center it vertically on the page – for example, if you’re trying to get a single line of text in the exact middle of a page.
Here is how to center text both horizontally and vertically:
- Insert a 1×1 table by going to Insert > Table and entering 1 for columns and 1 for rows. This creates a single-cell table.
- Click inside the table cell and paste or type the text you want to center.
- Extend the table to the bottom of the page by clicking and dragging the bottom right corner handle of the table border.
- Right click the table and select Table properties.
- In the Table properties pane, choose the Vertical alignment dropdown and select “Middle”.
- Finally, set the Border size to 0pt to hide the table borders around your centered text.
And that’s it! The text is now perfectly centered, both horizontally and vertically. For multi-line text, make sure to set the table row height tall enough to fit the content.
You can adjust page margins under File > Page setup if needed to fine tune the position of the centered text on the page.
Centering Text in Specific Areas
If you only want text centered on certain pages, like a front cover or title page, there is a way to do that without affecting the whole document.
Here are the steps:
- Insert a section break before and after the text you want to center using Insert > Break > Section break (continuous).
- Select the text between these section breaks and center it using the horizontal align steps above.
- The text before and after the section breaks will remain left aligned.
This trick allows you to have centered text only on pages where you want it, while the rest of the document retains regular formatting.
Conclusion
And there you have it – a few easy ways to center text horizontally, vertically, or only in specific sections in Google Docs.
Centered text can give documents visual appeal and draw attention to important content. Using Google Docs’ handy formatting options, you can quickly and easily align text in the center of a page.
Let me know if you have any other questions!
