+<dl>
+
+<dt id="Completely-turning-off-vertical-alignment-with--novalign"><b>Completely turning off vertical alignment with -novalign</b></dt>
+<dd>
+
+<p>The default is to use vertical alignment, but bertical alignment can be completely turned of with the <b>-novalign</b> flag.</p>
+
+<p>A lower level of control of vertical alignment is possible with three parameters <b>-vc</b>, <b>-vsc</b>, and <b>-vbc</b>. These independently control alignment of code, side comments and block comments. They are described in the next section.</p>
+
+<p>The parameter <b>-valign</b> is in fact an alias for <b>-vc -vsc -vbc</b>, and its negative <b>-novalign</b> is an alias for <b>-nvc -nvsc -nvbc</b>.</p>
+
+</dd>
+<dt id="Controlling-code-alignment-with---valign-code-or--vc"><b>Controlling code alignment with --valign-code or -vc</b></dt>
+<dd>
+
+<p>The <b>-vc</b> flag enables alignment of code symbols such as <b>=</b>. The default is <b>-vc</b>. For detailed control of which symbols to align, see the <b>-valign-exclude-list</b> parameter below.</p>
+
+</dd>
+<dt id="Controlling-side-comment-alignment-with---valign-side-comments-or--vsc"><b>Controlling side comment alignment with --valign-side-comments or -vsc</b></dt>
+<dd>
+
+<p>The <b>-vsc</b> flag enables alignment of side comments and is enabled by default. If side comment aligment is disabled with <b>-nvsc</b> they will appear at a fixed space from the preceding code token. The default is <b>-vsc</b></p>
+
+</dd>
+<dt id="Controlling-block-comment-alignment-with---valign-block-comments-or--vbc"><b>Controlling block comment alignment with --valign-block-comments or -vbc</b></dt>
+<dd>
+
+<p>When <b>-vbc</b> is enabled, block comments can become aligned for example if one comment of a consecutive sequence of comments becomes outdented due a length in excess of the maximum line length. If this occurs, the entire group of comments will remain aligned and be outdented by the same amount. This coordinated alignment will not occur if <b>-nvbc</b> is set. The default is <b>-vbc</b>.</p>
+
+</dd>
+<dt id="Finer-alignment-control-with---valign-exclusion-list-s-or--vxl-s-and---valign-inclusion-list-s-or--vil-s"><b>Finer alignment control with --valign-exclusion-list=s or -vxl=s and --valign-inclusion-list=s or -vil=s</b></dt>
+<dd>
+
+<p>More detailed control of alignment types is available with these two parameters. Most of the vertical alignments in typical programs occur at one of the tokens ',', '=', and '=>', but many other alignments are possible and are given in the following list:</p>
+
+<pre><code> = **= += *= &= <<= &&= -= /= |= >>= ||= //= .= %= ^= x=
+ { ( ? : , ; => && || ~~ !~~ =~ !~ // <=> ->
+ if unless and or err for foreach while until</code></pre>
+
+<p>These alignments are all enabled by default, but they can be selectively disabled by including one or more of these tokens in the space-separated list <b>valign-exclusion-list=s</b>. For example, the following would prevent alignment at <b>=</b> and <b>if</b>:</p>
+
+<pre><code> --valign-exclusion-list='= if'</code></pre>
+
+<p>If it is simpler to specify only the token types which are to be aligned, then include the types which are to be aligned in the list of <b>--valign-inclusion-list</b>. You may leave the <b>valign-exclusion-list</b> undefined, or use the special symbol <b>*</b> for the exclusion list. For example, the following parameters enable alignment only at commas and 'fat commas':</p>
+
+<pre><code> --valign-inclusion-list=', =>'
+ --valign-exclusion-list='*' ( this is optional and may be omitted )</code></pre>
+
+<p>These parameter lists should consist of space-separated tokens from the above list of possible alignment tokens, or a '*'. If an unrecognized token appears, it is simply ignored. And if a specific token is entered in both lists by mistake then the exclusion list has priority.</p>
+
+<p>The default values of these parameters enable all alignments and are equivalent to</p>
+
+<pre><code> --valign-exclusion-list=' '
+ --valign-inclusion-list='*'</code></pre>
+
+<p>To illustrate, consider the following snippet with default formatting</p>
+
+<pre><code> # perltidy
+ $co_description = ($color) ? 'bold cyan' : ''; # description
+ $co_prompt = ($color) ? 'bold green' : ''; # prompt
+ $co_unused = ($color) ? 'on_green' : 'reverse'; # unused</code></pre>
+
+<p>To exclude all alignments except the equals (i.e., include only equals) we could use:</p>
+
+<pre><code> # perltidy -vil='='
+ $co_description = ($color) ? 'bold cyan' : ''; # description
+ $co_prompt = ($color) ? 'bold green' : ''; # prompt
+ $co_unused = ($color) ? 'on_green' : 'reverse'; # unused</code></pre>
+
+<p>To exclude only the equals we could use:</p>
+
+<pre><code> # perltidy -vxl='='
+ $co_description = ($color) ? 'bold cyan' : ''; # description
+ $co_prompt = ($color) ? 'bold green' : ''; # prompt
+ $co_unused = ($color) ? 'on_green' : 'reverse'; # unused</code></pre>
+
+<p>Notice in this last example that although only the equals alignment was excluded, the ternary alignments were also lost. This happens because the vertical aligner sweeps from left-to-right and usually stops if an important alignment cannot be made for some reason.</p>
+
+<p>But also notice that side comments remain aligned because their alignment is controlled separately with the parameter <b>--valign-side_comments</b> described above.</p>
+
+</dd>
+</dl>
+