<html><head><title>Manually Aligning Formula Parts</title><meta name="filename" content="text/smath/guide/align"/><meta name="language" content="en-US"/><help:css-file-link xmlns:help="http://openoffice.org/2000/help"/><!--The CSS style header method for setting styles--><style type="text/css">
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<p class="Head1"><help:key-word value="aligning; formula parts" tag="kw68297_1" xmlns:help="http://openoffice.org/2000/help"/><help:key-word value="formula parts; manually aligning" tag="kw68297_2" xmlns:help="http://openoffice.org/2000/help"/><help:to-be-embedded Eid="align" xmlns:help="http://openoffice.org/2000/help"><help:link Id="68297">Manually Aligning Formula Parts</help:link></help:to-be-embedded></p>
<p class="Head3">How do you align characters in <help:productname xmlns:help="http://openoffice.org/2000/help">%PRODUCTNAME</help:productname> Math quickly and easily?</p>
<p class="Paragraph">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.</p>
<p class="Paragraph">To create empty groups, enter curly brackets <span class="T1">{}</span> in the command 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: a+a+a+{} newline {}{}{}{}{}a+a+a+a</p>
<p class="Paragraph">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: "A further example." newline a+b newline ""c-d</p>
