Using the move tool to manually position your text can be clumsy, especially if you want your design project to look professional.

This post will show you how to center text in GIMP in two easy steps. Plus, we’ve added a bonus tip for how to center a block of text.

Total Time: 1 minute

Create Your Text

First, you want to add text to the canvas before you can center it.

To do this:

1. Start GIMP and create a new image window 2. Click the Text Tool from the toolbox (highlighted in red) 3. Select your preferred font and font size from the text menu that appears on the left side of the window. 4. Click the canvas and type your text

Alternatively, you can type your text first after selecting the Text Tool in step 2 and then choose the font and size from the floating menu directly above the text.

Align the Text

The next step in how to center text in GIMP involves the use of the alignment tool. The screenshot above shows the alignment tool highlighted in red at the top left.

To do this:

1. Select the Alignment Tool from the toolbox. If you can’t find the tool, click and hold down the Move Tool until it shows the alignment tool. 2. Click the text to select it. 3. From the alignment menu on the left side of the window, click the Align center of target icon to move the text to the center of the canvas. It is the single icon highlighted in red under the Align option. 4. Next, click the following icons (highlighted in red) to move the centered text to different positions on the canvas.

Align top of target icon: Use this to move the text to the top of the canvas. Align middle of target icon: Use this to move the text to the middle of the canvas. Align bottom of target icon: Use this to move the text to the bottom of the canvas.

Bonus: How to Center a Block of Text in GIMP

You may want to add a block of text to your project in GIMP. Perhaps you want to create a picture quote or something similar. A block of text that is center-aligned is more visually appealing in some cases.

It is usually helpful to type and spell-check the text using a text editor. After that, copy the block of text to the clipboard.

The next technique is optional. The blood looks simply better when your text has rounded corners. We’ve a seperate tutorial for the rounded corners-technique. The technique is very useful. Have a look at it.

These are the quick steps to get rounded corners on this text: - Apply Filter / Gaussian Blur - 10px - Repeat the filter by Pressing CTRL+F - Repeat it again - Choose Colors / Curves, top left choose Alpha as channel. Move the point at the bottom to the middle, do so with the point that is at the top right. You’ll see immideate changes in the picture. Do this until you have nice rounded off corners.

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  Create a new layer and choose the pencil-tool. Make sure the color is the same as before

  870000.

  Paint even vertical lines down now. (You get exact lines when clicking a single dot someqhere into the text – this is the starting point – then hold SHIFT and set the endpoint). Do this a few times as seen on the image below. The strength of the pencil should be 7.
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  After being satisfied with the lines click “Merge down” by clicking right in the layers dialog. The Text and the lines should then be on a single layer. To make the lines look like a part of the text we use the Liquify-Filter. Filters / Distorts / IWarp. Choose “grow”. Deform radius: 9 Deform amount: 0.26 All Work is done in the preview-window of this filter: Now first work on the area where the ‘blood’ is coming out of the text and running down. Click and hold your mouse down at the exitpoint of the blood of the text and make small circular movements. The hard edges look more as they would have been a part of the text. Repeat this for every line. The next step are the endings of the lines. They should look like drops in the end, do this with the same teqchnique as with the exitpoints. After that use “shrink”. Now shrink the middle parts of the lines so that they become much thinner. To do this move the mouse (while holding down the mousebutton) from top to bottom until you find it thin enough. It should be uneven to look real! You should the have a result of something like that:
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  If your satisfied with the result you’re done ;) If you want to look the text even more like blood follow these steps: Duplicate the layer with the blood and click the “Lock”-Button in the layers dialog (it is found above the layers). It’s called “Sperre” in the image below.
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  Rightclick in the layers dialog “Selection from Alpha”. Then click the Channels dialog (Dialogs / Channels). Add a new channel: “Initialize from selection”. Click the channel in the channels dialog, then go to Select / None. Filter / Gaussian Blur 4 times with these values: 10px, 6px, 3 and finally 1 px.
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  Click the visibility (eye icon) of the channel to make it invisible. Change to the layers dialog, click the duplicated blood layer. Choose

  818181 as new foreground color.

  - Edit / Fill FG-Color. The duplicated layer should now be all gray.
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  Filters / Lights and Shadow / Lighing Effects. As bumpmap choose the channel we just created. Max. height: 0,05 For the Materials tab choose the values of the picture (they are in the same order in the english version of Gimp)
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  Then we need 2 lights. For the first light use these values: Light 1 Type: Directional Color White Intensity: 1 Direction: X Y Z: -0.9 / -1.5 / 0.7
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  For the second light use these values: Light 2 Type: Directional Color White Intensity: 1 Direction: X Y Z: 1.4 / 1.65 / 1.0
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  The layer is still alpha locked. Now apply the Gaussian Blur again. 3 times. every time use 2px for the blur.

  How do you change the position of text in GIMP?

  While holding the Alt / Option key, click and drag the text to the new position on the canvas. When holding down Alt / Option , the cursor changes to a move tool icon. You will now have moved your text to a new position on the canvas, and you can easily continue editing the text by changing the properties.

  How do I align an artboard in GIMP?

  You can activate the Align tool in several ways :. from the image-menu, through: Tools → Transform Tools → Align,. by clicking on the tool icon: in the toolbox,. by using the Q keyboard shortcut..