Left-justify text in LaTeX

Question

How do I left-justify my whole report? I have tried

\begin{flushleft}\end{flushleft}

But the problem is that it removes the alignment of my pictures. So is there a way to align only the text globally?

Answer 1

I recommend you load the ragged2e package (part of the ms suite of packages) with the document option:

\usepackage[document]{ragged2e}

With this setup, all parts of your document will be typeset left-justified (or "flush-left") rather than fully-justified. Relative to the "standard LaTeX" \raggedright directive, use of the ragged2e package preserves TeX's ability to hyphenate words; this, in turn, avoids creating the excessive line raggedness that almost invariably results from using \raggedright.

In the standard LaTeX document classes, material contained in a "floating" environment such as figure and table is aligned flush-left by default. If you want to center-align the contents of these environments, you may do so by issuing a \centering instruction after the \begin{figure} and \begin{table} directives. (The scope of the \centering instruction ends automatically when LaTeX processes the \end{figure} and \end{table} statements.)

Answer 2

As far as TeX's alignment goes a graphic is just the same as a big letter, it does not treat it any differently.

If you want your entire document flush left it is better to use the declaration form \raggedright after \begin{document} and then use \begin{center} or \begin{flushright} around your \includegraphics. Of if they are already in an environment such as figure perhaps use the declaration forms \centering or \raggedleft rather than the environments.