Is it possible to line up swing components? The components are in separate panels which both use flow layout. These two panels are in another panel which is using a grid layout. As you can see there is a subtle difference and I find it annoying. I know that all of the jlabels [the rectangles in blue/purple all have the same size, so i think it might be because of the '+' and '*', but I'm not sure because the left sides of the first two boxes aren't lined up. the panels JPanel panel2 = new JPanel(new GridLayout(4, 1)); JPanel panel2a = new JPanel(new FlowLayout()); JPanel panel2b = new JPanel(new FlowLayout()); the first two rectangles (purple) add1 = new JLabel("", JLabel.CENTER); add1.setTransferHandler(new TransferHandler("text")); add1.setBorder(b2); add2 = new JLabel("", JLabel.CENTER); add2.setTransferHandler(new TransferHandler("text")); add2.setBorder(b2); the two blue rectangles textFieldA = new JTextField(); textFieldA.setHorizontalAlignment(JTextField.CENTER); textFieldA.setEditable(false); textFieldA.setBorder(new LineBorder(Color.blue)); textFieldM = new JTextField(); textFieldM.setHorizontalAlignment(JTextField.CENTER); textFieldM.setEditable(false); textFieldM.setBorder(new LineBorder(Color.blue)); the + and * opA = new JLabel("+", JLabel.CENTER); opS = new JLabel("*", JLabel.CENTER); Showing that the rectangles are the same size Dimension d = card1.getPreferredSize(); int width = d.width + 100; int height = d.height + 50; add1.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(width, height)); add2.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(width, height)); mult1.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(width, height)); mult2.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(width, height)); textFieldA.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(width, height)); textFieldM.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(width, height)); Adding to the panels panel2a.add(add1); panel2a.add(opA); panel2a.add(add2); panel2a.add(enterA); panel2a.add(textFieldA); panel2c.add(mult1); panel2c.add(opM); panel2c.add(mult2); panel2c.add(enterM); panel2c.add(textFieldM); panel2.add(panel2a); panel2.add(panel2c);