Typographic alignment

In typesetting and page layout, alignment or range is the setting of text flow or placement relative to a page, column (measure), table cell, or tab (and often to an image above it or under it). The type alignment setting is sometimes referred to as text alignment, text justification, or type justification. The edge of a page or column is known as a margin, and a gap between columns is known as a gutter. There are four basic typographic alignments: flush left—the text is aligned along the left margin or gutter, also known as left-aligned, ragged right or ranged left; flush right—the text is aligned along the right margin or gutter, also known as right-aligned, ragged left or ranged right; justified—text is aligned along the left margin, with letter-spacing and word-spacing adjusted so that the text falls flush with both margins, also known as fully justified or full justification; centered—text is aligned to neither the left nor right margin; there is an even gap on each side of each line. Alignment does not change the direction in which text is read; however, text direction may determine the most commonly used alignment for that script. In English and most European languages where words are read left-to-right, text is usually aligned "flush left", meaning that the text of a paragraph is aligned on the left-hand side with the right-hand side ragged. This is the default style of text alignment on the World Wide Web for left-to-right text. Quotations are often indented. Flush left might also be used in very narrow columns, where full justification would produce too much whitespace between characters or words on some lines. In other languages that read text right-to-left, such as Persian, Arabic and Hebrew, text is commonly aligned "flush right". Additionally, flush-right alignment is used to set off special text in English, such as attributions to authors of quotes printed in books and magazines, or text associated with an image to its right. Flush right is often used when formatting tables of data.