---
id: css-text-alignment
title: "CSS Text Alignment"
category: "Frontend"
status: "draft"
verification_status: "conceptual"
canonical_id: ""
aliases: ["text-align", "text alignment", "text-align-last", "vertical-align", "text direction"]
duplicate_of: ""
source_trust_level: "B"
confidence_score: 0.88
created_at: 2026-06-23
updated_at: 2026-06-23
review_reason: ""
merge_history: []
tags: ["css", "web", "frontend", "w3schools", "text", "alignment"]
raw_sources: ["https://www.w3schools.com/css/css_text_align.asp"]
applied_in: []
github_commit: ""
---

# [[CSS Text Alignment]]

## 🎯 한 줄 통찰 (One-line insight)
CSS controls horizontal text alignment with `text-align` and `text-align-last`, vertical positioning with `vertical-align`, and text directionality with `direction` and `unicode-bidi`. [S1]

## 🧠 핵심 개념 (Core concepts)
- **Five related properties** — `text-align`, `text-align-last`, `vertical-align`, `direction`, and `unicode-bidi`. [S1]
- **`text-align` values** — `left` (aligns text to the left), `right` (aligns text to the right), `center` (centers the text), and `justify` (stretches the lines so that each line has equal width). [S1]
- **`text-align-last`** — specifies alignment for the final line; values: `auto`, `left`, `right`, `center`, `justify`, `start`, and `end`. [S1]
- **`vertical-align`** — values include `baseline`, length/%, `sub`, `super`, `top`, `text-top`, `middle`, `bottom`, and `text-bottom`. [S1]
- **Text direction** — `direction` with `unicode-bidi` controls right-to-left text. [S1]

## 🧩 추출된 패턴 (Extracted patterns)
- **Heading alignment pattern** — assign different `text-align` values across `h1`/`h2`/`h3` for varied alignment. [S1]
- **Justify-block pattern** — `text-align: justify;` stretches each line to equal width. [S1]
- **Inline-image vertical alignment pattern** — apply `vertical-align` per image class to position images relative to text. [S1]
- **RTL pattern** — combine `direction: rtl;` with `unicode-bidi: bidi-override;` for right-to-left text. [S1]

## 📖 세부 내용 (Details)
The page introduces five CSS properties for text alignment and direction: `text-align`, `text-align-last`, `vertical-align`, `direction`, and `unicode-bidi`. [S1]

**Text Alignment** — the `text-align` property accepts: "left - Aligns the text to the left," "right - Aligns the text to the right," "center - Centers the text," and "justify - Stretches the lines so that each line has equal width." [S1]

Example 1: [S1]
```css
h1 {
  text-align: center;
}

h2 {
  text-align: left;
}

h3 {
  text-align: right;
}
```

Example 2: [S1]
```css
div {
  text-align: justify;
}
```

**Text Align Last** — the `text-align-last` property specifies alignment for the final line, with values: `auto`, `left`, `right`, `center`, `justify`, `start`, and `end`. [S1]
```css
p.a {
  text-align-last: right;
}

p.b {
  text-align-last: center;
}

p.c {
  text-align-last: justify;
}
```

**Vertical Alignment** — the `vertical-align` property includes values like `baseline`, length/%, `sub`, `super`, `top`, `text-top`, `middle`, `bottom`, and `text-bottom`. [S1]
```css
img.a {
  vertical-align: baseline;
}

img.b {
  vertical-align: text-top;
}

img.c {
  vertical-align: text-bottom;
}

img.d {
  vertical-align: sub;
}

img.e {
  vertical-align: super;
}
```

**Text Direction** — [S1]
```css
p {
  direction: rtl;
  unicode-bidi: bidi-override;
}
```

A summary table on the page lists all five properties with their descriptions. [S1]

## 🛠️ 적용 사례 (Applied in summary)
The page's own examples are the applied cases: per-heading horizontal alignment, justified blocks, last-line alignment on paragraphs, per-image vertical alignment, and an RTL paragraph. No external project/commit applications found in the source.

## 💻 코드 패턴 (Code patterns)
Horizontal alignment pattern (language: CSS):
```css
selector {
  text-align: left | right | center | justify;
}
```
Concrete example:
```css
h1 {
  text-align: center;
}
```

## ⚖️ 비교 및 선택 기준 (Comparison & decision criteria)
- **`text-align` vs `text-align-last`** — `text-align` aligns all lines of a block, while `text-align-last` controls only the alignment of the final line. [S1]
- **`text-align` vs `vertical-align`** — `text-align` controls horizontal alignment of text; `vertical-align` controls the vertical positioning of inline content (e.g., images) relative to the line. [S1]
- **`justify` value choice** — choose `justify` when each line should stretch to equal width; choose `left`/`right`/`center` for simple alignment without stretching. [S1]

## ⚖️ 모순 및 업데이트 (Contradictions & updates)
No contradictions found in the source.

## ✅ 검증 상태 및 신뢰도
- **상태:** draft
- **검증 단계:** conceptual (실제 적용 사례 발견 시 applied/validated로 승격 가능)
- **출처 신뢰도:** B (W3Schools — widely used educational reference, not a primary standards body)
- **신뢰 점수:** 0.88
- **중복 검사 결과:** 신규 생성 (New discovery)

## 🔗 지식 그래프 (Knowledge Graph)
- **상위/루트:** [[CSS Tutorial]]
- **관련 개념:** [[CSS Text Color]], [[CSS Text Decoration]], [[CSS Text Spacing]]
- **참조 맥락:** Referenced when positioning text horizontally/vertically or supporting right-to-left languages.

## 📚 출처 (Sources)
- [S1] W3Schools — CSS Text Alignment — https://www.w3schools.com/css/css_text_align.asp

## 📝 변경 이력 (Change history)
- 2026-06-23: Initial draft synthesized from the W3Schools "CSS Text Alignment" page (Astra wiki-curation, P-Reinforce v3.1 format).