<help:link Id="68297">Aligning components of a formula</help:link>
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<p class="Head3">How does one align characters in OpenOffice.org 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>
