justification

An example of left, right, and fully justified text.

In printing and word processing, the arrangement of text so that it is aligned with either the left or right margin, or both.

Left-justified text has lines of different length that are perfectly aligned with the left margin but not with the right margin. The left margin is straight but the right margin is uneven, or ragged. Right-justified text, normally only used for columns of numbers, has lines of different length that are perfectly aligned with the right margin but not with the left margin. The right margin is straight but the left margin is ragged. Fully justified text has lines of the same length that are perfectly aligned with both the left and the right margins. Both margins are even. Many word processors can automatically produce fully justified text by inserting extra spaces between the words in each line, or by adjusting the spacing between the letters (microspacing).