Text Alignment in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows

Text is an important element in your PowerPoint slides, and most of the time, text alignment is taken care by the defaults set in your presentation template. You type or paste some text in a placeholder, and the text may align left, right, or even center, based upon the choices made in the template or Theme of the presentation. However, there are times when you want to make alignment choices, not just for text in placeholders, but also for text in text boxes, shapes, charts, tables, and anywhere else.

Follow these steps to align text in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows:

1. Select the text or the entire text container that you want to change the alignment for. Your text container can be a text box, a text placeholder, a shape, a chart, or a table.
2. With the text selected, access the Home tab of the Ribbon. Within the Home tab, locate the four text alignment icons in the Paragraph group, as shown highlighted in green within Figure 1, below.
3. 
   Figure 1: Left aligned text
4. Now, let us explore how we can change text alignment using these text alignment icons.

Align Left

5. Click the Align Left icon (highlighted in red within Figure 1) to make selected text left aligned, as shown in Figure 1, above (highlighted in blue). You can also press the Ctrl + L keyboard shortcut to achieve the same result.


PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcuts

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Center

6. Click the Center icon (highlighted in red within Figure 2) to make selected text center aligned, as shown in Figure 2 (highlighted in blue). You can also press the Ctrl + E keyboard shortcut to achieve the same result.
7. 
   Figure 2: Center aligned text

Align Right

8. Click the Align Right icon (highlighted in red within Figure 3) to make selected text right aligned, as shown in Figure 3 (highlighted in blue). You can also press the Ctrl + R keyboard shortcut to achieve the same result.
9. 
   Figure 3: Right aligned text

Justify

10. Click the Justify icon (highlighted in red within Figure 4) to make selected text justified, as shown in Figure 4 (highlighted in blue). You can also press the Ctrl + J keyboard shortcut to achieve the same result.
11. 
    Figure 4: Justified text

We also cover text alignment within shapes and text boxes in more detail in our Align Text within Shapes/Text Boxes in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows tutorial.