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<helpdocument version="1.0">
<meta>
<topic id="textsmathguidealignxml" indexer="include" status="PUBLISH">
<title id="tit">Manually Aligning Formula Parts</title>
<filename>/text/smath/guide/align.xhp</filename>
</topic>
<history>
<created date="2003-10-31T00:00:00">Sun Microsystems, Inc.</created>
</history>
</meta>
<body>
<bookmark branch="index" id="bm_id3156384"><bookmark_value>aligning; characters in %PRODUCTNAME Math</bookmark_value>
<bookmark_value>formula parts; manually aligning</bookmark_value>
</bookmark>
<h1 id="hd_id3156384"><variable id="align"><link href="text/smath/guide/align.xhp">Manually Aligning Formula Parts</link>
</variable></h1>
<h3 id="hd_id3154657">How do you align characters in $[officename] Math quickly and easily?</h3>
<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3150249">To accomplish this, you must define empty groups and character strings. They do not require any space, but carry information that helps in the alignment process.</paragraph>
<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3153912">To create empty groups, enter curly brackets <emph>{}</emph> in the Commands window. In the following example, the goal is to achieve a line break so that the plus signs are beneath one another, even though one less character is entered in the upper line:</paragraph>
<paragraph role="smathcode" id="par_id3153246" localize="false">a+a+a+{} newline {}{}{}{}{}a+a+a+a</paragraph>
<paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3143229">Empty character strings are a simple way to ensure that texts and formulas are left-aligned. They are defined using double inverted commas "" . Make sure you do not use any typographic inverted commas. Example:</paragraph>
<paragraph role="smathcode" id="par_id3153809">"A further example." newline a+b newline ""c-d</paragraph>

<section id="relatedtopics">
    <embed href="text/smath/guide/brackets.xhp#brackets"/>
</section>
</body>
</helpdocument>
