Text vertical alignment in WPF TextBlock

While Orion Edwards Answer works for any situation, it may be a pain to add the border and set the properties of the border every time you want to do this. Another quick way is to set the padding of the text block:

<TextBlock Height="22" Padding="3" />

The TextBlock doesn't support vertical text alignment.

I work around this by wrapping the text block with a Grid and setting HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" and VerticalAlignment="Center".

Like this:

<Grid>
    <TextBlock 
        HorizontalAlignment="Stretch"
        VerticalAlignment="Center"
        Text="Your text" />
</Grid>

You can use label instead of textblock.

<Label Content="Hello, World!">
    <Label.LayoutTransform>
        <RotateTransform Angle="270"/>
    </Label.LayoutTransform>
</Label>

TextBlock doesn't support vertical alignment of its content. If you must use TextBlock then you have to align it with respect to its parent.

However if you can use Label instead (and they do have very similar functionality) then you can position the text content:

<Label VerticalContentAlignment="Center" HorizontalContentAlignment="Center">
   I am centred text!
</Label>

The Label will stretch to fill its bounds by default, meaning the label's text will be centred.

If you can do without the text wrapping, I think that replacing the TextBlock with a Label is the most succinct way to do this. Otherwise follow one of the other valid answers.

<Label Content="Some Text" VerticalAlignment="Center"/>

The best way to achieve what you're talking about here, is to create a label, which supports VerticalContentAlignment

Then, if you really need some of TextBlock properties which Label doesn't cover, like TextWrapping you can place a TextBlock inside your Label

The result meets both your needs, VerticalContentAlignment and TextWrapping

<Label
   VerticalContentAlignment="Center">
   <TextBlock
             TextWrapping="WrapWithOverflow">
             My text goes here!
   </TextBlock> 
<Label/>

For me, VerticalAlignment="Center" fixes this problem.
This could be because the TextBlockis wrapped in a grid, but then so is practically everything in wpf.

In my case, I did this to make the TextBlock display nicer.

<Border BorderThickness="3" BorderBrush="Yellow" CornerRadius="10" Padding="2"
    HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Center" Height="30" Width="150">
        <TextBlock FontSize="20" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="0,0,0,-5" Text="" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="141" Background="White" />
</Border>

The trick to make the text further from the bottom is to set

Margin="0,0,0,-5"

I've found that modifying the textbox style (ie: controltemplate) and then modifying the PART_ContentHost vertical alignment to Center will do the trick

Just for giggles, give this XAML a whirl. It isn't perfect as it is not an 'alignment' but it allows you to adjust text alignment within a paragraph.

<TextBlock>
    <TextBlock BaselineOffset="30">One</TextBlock>
    <TextBlock BaselineOffset="20">Two</TextBlock>  
    <Run>Three</Run>            
    <Run BaselineAlignment="Subscript">Four</Run>   
</TextBlock>

If you can overlook the height of TextBlock, it's better for you to use this:

<TextBlock Height="{Binding}" Text="Your text"
TextWrapping="Wrap" VerticalAlignment="Center" Width="28"/>

I found I had to do it slightly different. My problem was that if I changed the font size, the text would move up in the TextBox instead of stay on the bottom with the rest of TextBoxes on the line. By changing the vert alignment from top to bottom I was able to change the font programmatically from size 20 to size 14 & back, keeping text's gravity on the bottom and keeping things neat. Here's how:

To expand on the answer provided by @Orion Edwards, this is how you would do fully from code-behind (no styles set). Basically create a custom class that inherits from Border which has its Child set to a TextBox. The example below assumes that you only want a single line and that the border is a child of a Canvas. Also assumes you would need to adjust the MaxLength property of the TextBox based on the width of the Border. The example below also sets the cursor of the Border to mimic a Textbox by setting it to the type 'IBeam'. A margin of '3' is set so that the TextBox isn't absolutely aligned to the left of the border.

double __dX = 20;
double __dY = 180;
double __dW = 500;
double __dH = 40;
int __iMaxLen = 100;

this.m_Z3r0_TextBox_Description = new CZ3r0_TextBox(__dX, __dY, __dW, __dH, __iMaxLen, TextAlignment.Left);
this.Children.Add(this.m_Z3r0_TextBox_Description);

Class:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows;
using System.Windows.Controls;
using System.Windows.Input;
using System.Windows.Media;
using System.Windows.Shapes;
using System.Windows.Controls.Primitives;


namespace ifn0tz3r0Exp
{
    class CZ3r0_TextBox : Border
    {
        private TextBox m_TextBox;

        private SolidColorBrush m_Brush_Green = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.MediumSpringGreen);
        private SolidColorBrush m_Brush_Black = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Black);
        private SolidColorBrush m_Brush_Transparent = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Transparent);

        public CZ3r0_TextBox(double _dX, double _dY, double _dW, double _dH, int _iMaxLen, TextAlignment _Align)
        {

            /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
            //TEXTBOX
            this.m_TextBox = new TextBox();
            this.m_TextBox.Text = "This is a vertically centered one-line textbox embedded in a border...";
            Canvas.SetLeft(this, _dX);
            Canvas.SetTop(this, _dY);
            this.m_TextBox.FontFamily = new FontFamily("Consolas");
            this.m_TextBox.FontSize = 11;
            this.m_TextBox.Background = this.m_Brush_Black;
            this.m_TextBox.Foreground = this.m_Brush_Green;
            this.m_TextBox.BorderBrush = this.m_Brush_Transparent;
            this.m_TextBox.BorderThickness = new Thickness(0.0);
            this.m_TextBox.Width = _dW;
            this.m_TextBox.MaxLength = _iMaxLen;
            this.m_TextBox.TextAlignment = _Align;
            this.m_TextBox.VerticalAlignment = System.Windows.VerticalAlignment.Center;
            this.m_TextBox.FocusVisualStyle = null;
            this.m_TextBox.Margin = new Thickness(3.0);
            this.m_TextBox.CaretBrush = this.m_Brush_Green;
            this.m_TextBox.SelectionBrush = this.m_Brush_Green;
            this.m_TextBox.SelectionOpacity = 0.3;

            this.m_TextBox.GotFocus += this.CZ3r0_TextBox_GotFocus;
            this.m_TextBox.LostFocus += this.CZ3r0_TextBox_LostFocus;
            /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
            //BORDER

            this.BorderBrush = this.m_Brush_Transparent;
            this.BorderThickness = new Thickness(1.0);
            this.Background = this.m_Brush_Black;            
            this.Height = _dH;
            this.Child = this.m_TextBox;
            this.FocusVisualStyle = null;
            this.MouseDown += this.CZ3r0_TextBox_MouseDown;
            this.Cursor = Cursors.IBeam;
            /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
        }
        private void CZ3r0_TextBox_MouseDown(object _Sender, MouseEventArgs e)
        {
            this.m_TextBox.Focus();
        }
        private void CZ3r0_TextBox_GotFocus(object _Sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            this.BorderBrush = this.m_Brush_Green;
        }
        private void CZ3r0_TextBox_LostFocus(object _Sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            this.BorderBrush = this.m_Brush_Transparent;
        }
    }
}

I think is better to use a Label(or TextBlock) into a Label, you can't attach a mouse event directly in the border control, finally it is attached in the TextBlock, this is my recomendation:

<Label 
    Height="32"
    VerticalContentAlignment="Center"
    HorizontalContentAlignment="Stretch"
    MouseLeftButtonUp="MenuItem_MouseLeftButtonUp">
    <TextBlock Padding="32 0 10 0">
        Label with click event
    </TextBlock>
</Label>

  <TextBox AcceptsReturn="True" 
           TextWrapping="Wrap"  
           VerticalContentAlignment="Top" >
  </TextBox>

I think it's wise to use a textbox with no border and background as an easy and fast way to reach center aligned textblock

<TextBox
TextWrapping="Wrap"
HorizontalContentAlignment="Center"
VerticalContentAlignment="Center"
Background="{x:Null}"
BorderBrush="{x:Null}"
/>

Since none of these answers worked for me when the TextBlock is in a Canvas, I thought I'd share my solution on this. While it isn't absolutely accurate, changing the Canvas.Left property based on the text length does the job.

public static void SetAlignedText(this TextBlock textBlock, string text)
{
      textBlock.Text = text;
      Canvas.SetLeft(textBlock, -text.Length * 4);
}

You will probably need to change the factor depending on the font size. I used 4 for font size 20. The only time this approach absolutely doesn't work is when the text contains exceptionally many thin characters, like I's.