How to center align text in MS Word Table

You may need to insert tables in your MS Word document to present data. Your table may contain text or numbers in different cells. But, for each cell, Word defaults to left alignment in the horizontal direction. The default vertical alignment is to the top of the cell.

If you do not like the default alignments, Word allows you to change them. For instance, you may have a lot of text in some cells and few in others. Center aligning all the text in the table makes it easier to read.

For horizontal alignment, you may consider one of the three choices that Word offers:

• Left (default)
• Center
• Right

For the vertical alignment, Word offers three more choices in relation to the cell:

• Top (default)
• Center
• Bottom

Additionally, you may apply the process in two ways:

• Center align only a select cell
• Center align the entire table in one go.

We will show you how you can accomplish the above in easy steps.

Let’s begin.

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Method #1: Center align only a select cell

Step #1: Open the Word document. It must have at least one table in it.

Step #2: Change the ribbon to display the Home menu

Click on the Home tab in the top menu bar to change the ribbon.

Step #3: Center align the content of a cell

Click inside the cell you want to align.

Click on the Layout tab under Table Tools.

In the Alignment section, Word offers nine choices for alignment:

• Align Top Left, Align Top Center, Align Top Right
• Align Center Left, Align Center, Align Center Right
• Align Bottom Left, Align Bottom Center, Align Bottom Right

To center align the text in the cell, choose Align Center.

Word will center the text in the cell horizontally as well as vertically.

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Method #2: Center align the entire table

Step #1: Open the Word document. It must have at least one table in it.

Step #2: Change the ribbon to display the Home menu

Click on the Home tab in the top menu bar to change the ribbon.

Step #3: Center align the contents of the table

Click on the cross icon in the top left corner of the table to select the table.

Click on the Layout tab under Table Tools.

In the Alignment section, Word offers nine choices for alignment:

• Align Top Left, Align Top Center, Align Top Right
• Align Center Left, Align Center, Align Center Right
• Align Bottom Left, Align Bottom Center, Align Bottom Right

To center align all the contents in the table, choose Align Center.

Word will center the contents of all the cells in the table horizontally as well as vertically.

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Conclusion

Follow our above instructions step-by-step to center align your text within an MS Word table.