w:textAlignment (Vertical Text Alignment)

Specifies the vertical alignment of text within each line for paragraphs containing mixed-size content.

Parent elements

w:pPr

Description

w:textAlignment controls how the baseline and bounding box of characters within a line relate to one another when multiple font sizes or scripts are mixed on a single line. It is particularly important for East Asian typography where ideographic characters and Western characters coexist.

It is defined in ECMA-376 Part 1 §17.3.1.39.

Attributes

Attribute	Type	Possible Values	Description
`w:val`	`ST_TextAlignment`	`auto`, `baseline`, `bottom`, `center`, `top`	Controls vertical alignment within the line.

Values

Value	Description
`auto`	Alignment determined automatically by the processor (default).
`baseline`	Characters aligned on the Latin text baseline.
`bottom`	Characters aligned at the bottom of the em box (bottom of ideographic characters).
`center`	Characters centered vertically in the em box.
`top`	Characters aligned at the top of the em box.

Examples

<!-- Align mixed-script content to the Latin baseline -->
<w:p>
  <w:pPr>
    <w:textAlignment w:val="baseline"/>
  </w:pPr>
  <w:r><w:t>English and 日本語 aligned to baseline.</w:t></w:r>
</w:p>

using DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Wordprocessing;

var para = new Paragraph(
    new ParagraphProperties(
        new TextAlignment { Val = VerticalTextAlignmentValues.Baseline }
    ),
    new Run(new Text("English and 日本語 aligned to baseline."))
);

Notes

The most commonly observed values are auto and baseline.
This property is distinct from the table cell vertical alignment (w:vAlign in w:tcPr) and the page vertical alignment (w:vAlign in w:sectPr).