How do I align text within a JTextField?

JTextArea aligns to the top.

Or use a JLabel:

JLabel myLabel = new JLabel("my text");

and the call:

myLabel.setHorizontalAlignment(SwingConstants.LEFT);
myLabel.setVerticalAlignment(SwingConstants.TOP);

Layout managers is the another way of doing this: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/layout/using.html