Alignment in GridLayout

I have a few nested panels and I want to center align the contents of the cells.
An example of what I have is:

Code:

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Container witIncrementPane = new Panel();
witIncrementPane.setLayout(new GridLayout (1,3,5,1));
final JButton witUpButton = new JButton(upArrow);
witUpButton.setBackground(Color.white);
final JButton witDownButton = new JButton(downArrow);
witDownButton.setBackground(Color.white);
witIncrementPane.add(witUpButton);
witIncrementPane.add(witIncrementLabel);
witIncrementPane.add(witDownButton);

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I want the buttons and label to all be centered.

(I think) In a gridlayout, buttons will take up the entire space of the cell they are in therefore making it impossible to center them. To center text of a JLabel:

Code:

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JLabel label = new JLabel("text", JLabel.CENTER);

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You could use greater vgap and hgap values, with GridLayout.

Or, use a Box with combination of GridLayout(1,1). I've used this trick:

Code:

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        Box buttonBox = Box.createHorizontalBox();
        buttonBox.createHorizontalGlue();
        buttonBox.add(cancelButton);
        buttonBox.add(new JPanel()); // dummy
        buttonBox.add(backButton);
        buttonBox.add(nextButton);
        container.add(buttonBox);

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