8.3.1 \centering ¶

Synopsis:

{\centering ... }

or

\begin{group}
  \centering ...
\end{group}

Center the material in its scope. It is most often used inside an environment such as figure, or in a parbox.

This example’s \centering declaration causes the graphic to be horizontally centered.

\begin{figure}
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=0.6\textwidth]{ctan_lion.png}
  \caption{CTAN Lion}  \label{fig:CTANLion}
\end{figure}

The scope of this \centering ends with the \end{figure}.

Unlike the center environment, the \centering command does not add vertical space above and below the text. That’s its advantage in the above example; there is not an excess of space.

It also does not start a new paragraph; it simply changes how LaTeX formats paragraph units. If ww {\centering xx \\ yy} zz is surrounded by blank lines then LaTeX will create a paragraph whose first line ‘ww xx’ is centered and whose second line, not centered, contains ‘yy zz’. Usually what is desired is for the scope of the declaration to contain a blank line or the \end command of an environment such as figure or table that ends the paragraph unit. Thus, if {\centering xx \\ yy\par} zz is surrounded by blank lines then it makes a new paragraph with two centered lines ‘xx’ and ‘yy’, followed by a new paragraph with ‘zz’ that is formatted as usual.