How to use different text alignments for different paragraphs in the same message

Owned by Former user (Deleted)
Oct 28, 2014
2 min read

Paragraphs and text alignment

There are several ways to create new paragraphs or separate sections of a document in HTML. Among them: the <P> tag (paragraph), the <BR> tag (break), and the <DIV> tag. When using <P> and <DIV>, you can assign to each portion of the message that uses those tags a different text alignment. When you are using <BR>, however, you can't: it creates a line break (or multiple line breaks if used more than once), but each line inherits the style of the previous line, including the text alignment.

Now, when you press the ENTER key on your keyboard when writing a message in the HTML Editor on the Add/Modify message page, the system will add a <BR> tag to the message. Therefore, you will not be able to change the alignment of the new section of the message that you thought you were creating.
To avoid this issue, you can use the button , which creates a new paragraph in the message. You can then highlight the new paragraph and set a different text alignment for it.

Using the <DIV> tag

Alternatively, you can switch to the HTML code view by using the "<>" tab at the bottom of the message, and you can use <DIV> tags. Remember, however, that <DIV> tags in email messages can only be used in a single column layout as floating and positioning are layout properties that are not widely supported among different email clients.

Using HTML tables for content layout

For more complex layouts - since support for cascading style sheets is still not widespread across popular email clients - you will need to revert back to using good, old HTML tables (yes, even if you've been told for ages not to use HTML tables when designing Web pages).

You can easily do so in the HTML Editor:

1) Add a table with the rows and columns that you think you need (you can always change that later)
2) Merge the cells that need to merge, if any
3) Enter the content in the various table cells (typically place text and images in different cells)
4) You can now alter the alignment in each cell separately from any other cell
5) Set the table border to 0 to make the table invisible
6) Use the table properties to increase or decrease the padding among table cells
6) Use this icon  to show hidden table borders (it can help understand how the content is organized)