Sorry for the self-follow-up.
I misunderstood your second question - here's the correct response. Looks
like I picked the wrong week to stop smoking crack!
Paragraph alignment is available via keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl-L, Ctrl-E,
Ctrl-R --> all the same shortcuts from Word). The icons for paragraph
alignment are not on the toolbars or menus by default but can be added by
right-clicking on any menu and choosing Customize. The standard Office
Toolbar dialog box opens and you can choose the three alignment toolbar
buttons from the "All Commands" list.