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Alignment Blocks

Use an Alignment Block to change the alignment for a selection of text. An Alignment Block will be formatted differently from the content of your book, and can be inset or designated to only be included in your ebook edition.

Adding an Alignment Block

To add an Alignment Block to your book, select the paragraphs you wish to format and choose the Alignment Block item from the Text Feature menu:

Vellum's Text Feature menu

Changing Alignment

When you first add an Alignment Block, the selected text will be centered:

You can change the block’s alignment using the gear menu that is shown when text within the block is selected:

Alignment Block menu shows options for Left, Center, and Right alignment

A left-aligned block will not be indented, as seen in this use as an introduction to a chapter:

As demonstrated in the example above, text within an alignment block is never formatted as the first paragraph in a chapter. Instead, the text that follows the block will be formatted as the first paragraph (in this case, with a drop cap).

Inset

The Inset option adds margin to the left and right sides of the Alignment Block:

An inset, flush-left Alignment Block is one way to format text that should feel distinct from the surrounding content, but still a part of it (e.g. as shown above, the text on a card that is read by a character).

Edition-Specific Text

An Alignment Block is sometimes used for a call-to-action, which you may only want to appear in your ebook. You can achieve this using the Include In menu:

Include In menu shows options for Ebooks only and Print only

In the Text Editor, an edition-specific Alignment Block will be shown with a background, and include an icon indicating the edition where it will be used:

An Alignment Block marked as ebook only displays an ebook icon

Note: Include In options are not available for text within an edition-specific element.

Page Breaks

You may not want a page break to occur in the middle of an Alignment Block or directly after one. You can guide these behaviors using Keep Lines on Same Page and Keep With Next Paragraph.

Menu showing Keep Lines on Same Page and Keep With Next Paragraph

Keep Lines on Same Page

If your Alignment Block spans several lines, you may want to ensure these lines stay together rather than being split across multiple pages. You can request this behavior by enabling Keep Lines on Same Page.

This option mainly applies to your print edition, but is also supported on some ebook platforms, including Kindle and Apple Books.

Keep With Next Paragraph

If you’ve used an Alignment Block as a title for content that follows, you may want to make certain the title appears together with that content, rather than at the bottom of a page. You can achieve this using Keep With Next Paragraph.

This option is only supported in your print edition.