Justified Alignment - last line not aligned to the left

Dear community,

I have two problems with the justified alignment of my text in Libre Office Writer (Version 6.4.6.2).
I wish all paragraphs in my text to be aligned justified with the last line left. However, when I select one paragraph and set it from left aligned to justified alignment, not only does it affect several paragraphs before and after that paragraph instead of just changing that individual paragraph.
It also aligns the last line as justified, no matter how much I right-click in the paragraph, elect Paragraph from the context menu, choose edit style->alignment and choose “last line Start” (instead of “last line centered/justified”, I understand that “start” should translate into “left”).

After trying to select each paragraph individually and setting the text to justified alignment, last line start, the text suddenly set itself to justified alignment and last line left in all parts of the document (not only the paragraph I selected) - except the first two paragraphs. They now stubbornly remain left aligned compeletely, when I use the method described above (I right-click in the paragraph, elect Paragraph from the context menu, choose edit style->alignment and choose “last line start”). I also tried selecting both paragraphs, choosing the “format” tab, clicking “Paragraph” ending up in the same menu as I did when I right clicked in the document and chose “paragraph” from the context menu. No different result. The paragraphs do not react at all to the settings in the window that comes when going through the context menu or the “format” tab.
The only thing that changes the alignment is when I use another method and choose the “justified alignment” button from the top toolbar while leaving the cursor in either one of the paragraphs. Then both paragraphs shift to justified alignment, but again with the last line justified instead of left.

The whole text is in the style “Text Body”, I have also tried switching it to “Default Style” with no positive results. What happened then was that the alignment just randomly switched in some paragraphs from last line “start” (aka. left) to “last line justified” and vice versa. So it’s one paragraph correct, one incorrect, one correct, one incorrect now. Ugh.

So, several questions:

  1. how can I shift the alignment of all paragraphs to “justified alignment” with the last line aligned “start” (left)? (when a paragraph only contains a single line I presume that is also recognized as a “last line”)

  2. Why does formatting one paragraph effect the paragraphs around it so randomly? it’s not one paragraph above and one below, but simply a group of paragraphs around the selected paragraph.

  3. Why does the text react differently when I use the toolbox row on top instead of the context menu?

  4. What is going on with the Text Styles?

→ Prioritization on Question Nr 1 :smiley:

Try resetting paragraph formatting (select all → Ctrl + M).

Share a sample file.

It is likely that you didn’t end your paragraphs with a paragraph break Enter but with a line break Shift+Enter. A line break does not end a paragraph, therefore this line is not the last one and gets aligned as is prescribed by the paragraph rule.

You have a very long paragraph between two real paragraph breaks and this paragraph contains some intentionally “shortened” lines.

Regarding styles, you apparently don’t use them consistently, mixing both styling (with paragraph styles as base formatting) and direct formatting (applying additional formatting rules with toolbar buttons). This mix is the most reliable way to mess up everything. Note there are several levels of styles and targets: paragraph, character, frame, page and list.

Learn how to use it in the Writer Guide.

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Hey, thanks for the answer! Nope, I ended my paragraphs with a paragraph break, not a line break.
As to Styles, I’ll have to look into that.

Then attach a sample file to your question (you can’t attach to a comment).

I was having a similar problem and I solved disabling this flag:

If it works for you, then @ajlittoz was correct about you had used a manual line break and didn’t notice.

Cheers

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