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How to Add Underline and Justify Text Buttons in WordPress

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Do you need to underline or justify text in WordPress?

WordPress used to have both justify and underline text buttons in the visual editor. However, they have been removed and are no longer available.

In this article, we’ll show you how to add underline and justify text buttons in WordPress.

How to Add Underline and Justify Text Buttons in WordPress

Why Add Underline and Justify Text Buttons in WordPress?

Would you like to restore the missing underline and justify buttons when editing posts and pages on your WordPress website? These buttons were removed from the post editor in WordPress 4.7, but luckily there’s a way to bring them back.

However, there are a few reasons you should consider not underlining and justifying text on your website.

First, underlined text can look like links, and your users may become frustrated when what they think is a link doesn’t work. Also, justified text can make your content harder to read, especially on small screens.

With that being said, let’s take a look at how to add underline and justify text buttons in WordPress. We’ll show you how to do this for the block and classic editor. We’ll also show you how to underline and justify text using keyboard shortcuts, without the need for a button.

Underlining and Justifying Text Using Keyboard Shortcuts

You don’t need a plugin or toolbar icons to underline or justify text in WordPress. Instead, you can simply use a keyboard shortcut.

To underline text, just select the text you want to underline in WordPress and press Ctrl+U on Windows or Command+U on Mac. That’s it. This keyboard shortcut will work with both the block and classic editor.

There’s another keyboard shortcut for justifying text. Simply select the text and press Shift+Alt+J in Windows or Command+Option+J on Mac and your text will be justified.

However, the keyboard combination for justifying text will only work with the classic editor. If you use the block editor, then you will not be able to justify text with a keyboard shortcut and should use the plugin method below.

Adding Underline and Justify Text Buttons to the Block Editor

First, you’ll need to install and activate the Gutenberg Block Editor Toolkit – EditorsKit plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, the plugin will make underline, justify, and other formatting features available when using the WordPress block editor.

These additional icons can’t be added directly to the block editor’s toolbar, but you will find the extra options when clicking the ‘Displays more block tools’ down arrow on the toolbar.

Access Underline and Justify from the 'Displays More Block Tools' Icon

To underline text, you should first select the text, then click the ‘Displays more block tools’ down arrow, and then click on ‘Underline’ from the drop down menu.

To justify a paragraph, first make sure that your cursor is in that paragraph. Then click the ‘Displays more block tools’ down arrow and select ‘Justify’ from the drop down menu.

Adding Underline and Justify Text Buttons to the Classic Editor

If you are using the classic editor, then you should start by installing and activating the Advanced Editor Tools plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you will need to navigate to Settings » Advanced Editor Tools (TinyMCE Advanced) in your admin menu. Next, you need to click on the ‘Classic Editor (TinyMCE)’ tab at the top of the page.

You will notice a preview of the WordPress classic editor. Below the preview, it will show you all the unused buttons.

Now you need to drag and drop underline and justify text buttons from ‘Unused Buttons’ box to the post editor.

Drag the Unused Buttons You Need to the Classic Editor's Toolbar

When you have finished, make sure you click the ‘Save Changes’ button at the top of the screen to store the new settings.

Now when you are creating or editing a WordPress blog post or page, the new formatting buttons will be available on the classic editor’s toolbar.

Underline and Justify Buttons Are Now Available on the Classic Editor's Toolbar

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to add underline and justify text buttons in WordPress. You may also want to learn why WordPress is free, or check out our list of must have plugins to grow your site.

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Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WPBeginner is a team of WordPress experts led by Syed Balkhi with over 16 years of experience in WordPress, Web Hosting, eCommerce, SEO, and Marketing. Started in 2009, WPBeginner is now the largest free WordPress resource site in the industry and is often referred to as the Wikipedia for WordPress.

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Reader Interactions

37 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Syed Balkhi says

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  2. Jiří Vaněk says

    Does text alignment using ‘justify’ have any impact on a website’s content ranking, for instance by Google? Or is it just that it might create unnatural gaps in the text for some people? I’m wondering if using ‘justify’ could affect content evaluation in any way. Personally, I don’t use justify, but sometimes website owners request it.

    • WPBeginner Support says

      Using Justify should not affect your site’s rankings and it is used by some sites to prevent an unnatural look depending on the theme that the site uses.

      Admin

  3. Reinette says

    Thank you so much! TinyMCE is a super little plugin and I love what it’s done for my text editor.
    Again, thank you!

  4. James says

    This doesn’t work on my blog. When I click plugins I go to ‘Jetpack by WordPress.com’ and there is nothing there similar to what you are talking about!!!!

    • Aayush Bhaskar says

      You must be going to Site Dashboard instead of going to Network Admin Area. Click on the Home Icon and Select Network Admin>plugins. There will be Add new, Network Activate etc options available.

  5. Sampath S says

    Alternately, you can just use keyboard shortcuts:

    Justify alignment – Alt +Shift +J
    Underline – Ctrl+U

  6. Sharyn Wise says

    You are an amazing WONDERFUL stupendously great FANTASTIC person!
    I have just discovered these had gone missing!
    THANK YOU!

  7. Sarah says

    Don’t really need a plugin for that. In Mac Ctrl+Alt+J and text justified,

    But why wordpress decided to remove the icon from the menu ?

  8. A says

    For me, this helped:
    Select the text you wish to justify (ctrl+A)
    Press Shift+Alt+J
    And wordpress then justifies the text!

  9. Thomas says

    Why did they remove the option to justify or underline text anyway? Was it causing issues somewhere along the line?

  10. louis says

    Good! It’s interesting. :) Under certain conditions, this may be useful!

    On the other hand, I think the underlining should be avoided in all web documents except for creating hyperlinks. This can sometimes cause confusion given the hyperlinks. As for the justification function of the text, this very often gives unexpected results.

    It is not for nothing that these two options have been eliminated. Use with parsimony in VERY rare conditions.

    Sorry about my poor english.

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