Add "flush space" / Justify a single line of text in Microsoft Word

Question

Adobe Indesign allows you to insert flush space. Flush space is expanded so that all items on one line are equally spaced and the line is filled completely.

Here is what the result should look like: (| represent the left and right margins of the page or table cell)

|a   a   a   a|
|a     a     a|
|a           a|

Does Microsoft Word have a similar feature?

EDIT: Thanks to DavidPostill's comment below I realized that I am looking for justification. Unfortunately, I need this to work for a single line of text and Word seems to have a policy not to justify single lines of text. Is there a way to work around that?

Answer 1

Source How do I justify text in Word?

Justifying text can make a document look professional. When you justify text in Microsoft Word, the text is aligned with both the left and right margins or with any paragraph indents.

Because justifying a short line of text creates large spaces between words, Word does not justify a paragraph containing a single line or the last line of a paragraph.

You can either justify the text manually or by making justification a property of the style applied to your text.

To justify text manually

• Select the text you want to justify.
• On the Format menu, click Paragraph.

• On the Indents and Spacing tab, in the Alignment box, select Justified.

  Tip Use the Formatting toolbar to justify your text quickly. Select the text, then click Justify. (To display the Formatting toolbar, point to Toolbars on the View menu, and then click Formatting.)

To modify the paragraph style

• On the Format menu, click Style.
• In the Styles box, select the style you want to modify, and then click Modify.
• Click Format, and then click Paragraph.
• On the Indents and Spacing tab, in the Alignment box, select Justified.

From the above it appears that word will not do the justification for you if it is a single line (or the last line of a paragraph).

However, there is an (undocumented) option called Distributed Paragraph Alignment or Distributed Text Justification that may do what you want.

Source Alignment/Justification of Text in Microsoft Word

Distributed Paragraph Alignment Ctrl+Shift+J - an undocumented option

Unless you have support for some East-Asian Language installed, you will only see the four icons with none showing as active:

If you do have that language support turned on, you will see five icons in the paragraph alignment area with the fifth one being for Distributed.

This was built into Word as a part of East Asian Language Support and is in all versions of Word since at least Word 2003. Distributed should never be used in English for regular text. Note above that in the last line the parentheses and period are counted as characters and space is used to stretch them as well.

If you have language support turned on for any East Asian Language, the icon will be with your other paragraph formatting alignment options as shown.

Otherwise, you can add the command for Distributed Paragraph text to the Quick Action Toolbar or a Ribbon in Word 2007 and later. It is under All Commands as "Distributed." When added to a the QAT or Ribbon, it gives the icon although not with the other icons. In Word 2003 you cannot display the icon (AFAIK) without installing support for an East-Asian language. The shortcut Ctrl+Shift+J, though, is available.

Here is an example using Distributed Paragraph Text:

Although this option "should never be used in English for regular text" it may be OK to use for your particular special case.

Answer 2

Actually there is a workaround, you can use manual line breaks (Shift+Enter) instead of simply pressing Enter

Answer 3

This is an old question but just in case anyone here is still looking for an answer my eventual solution was to add a few full stops at the end of the line I wanted to justify (no spaces between them) until a long enough "word" was created to start a new final line and thus automatically justify the penultimate line. I then changed the colour of the full stops to white so they did not show in the document.