Re: justify
Justified
1. A pretty good show starring Timothy Olyphant and Walton Goggins.
2. Sabr’s plea for text alignment.
Sabr, you got me wondering what the general guidelines are around text alignment, so I did some hasty research. I hate to undermine your mission, but the typography geeks don’t seem to agree with you.
Here are some excerpts.
Justified text | Butterick’s Practical Typography:
If you’re using justified text, you must also turn on hyphenation to prevent gruesomely large spaces between words, as shown in the example below.
...
Justification is ... not a signifier of professional typography. For instance, most major U.S. newspapers and magazines use a mix of justified and left-aligned text. Books, on the other hand, tend to be justified.
Keep in mind that the justification engine of a word processor or web browser is rudimentary compared to that of a professional page-layout program. So if I’m making a word-processor document or web page, I’ll always left-align the text, because justification can look clunky and coarse. Whereas if I’m using a professional layout program, I might justify.
Justified Text Versus Ragged-Right Text - Adams on Contract Drafting:
Although as a general matter I have no problem reading justified text, I dislike it intensely in word-processed documents, including contracts, because I find that it makes them much harder to read.
Does justified text have anything going for it for purposes of word-processed documents? Well, its defenders will tell you that it looks “professional.” But it’s a phony professionalism, in that it comes at the expense of readability, which should be the first priority of any kind of typesetting, including word processing.
Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students, as quoted in Adams’s blog above:
The reason that text with justified margins looks bad in a single-column Word document is that subtle word-spacing and letter-spacing algorithms are needed to make justified text look “good,” and Word’s aren’t up the job. So it’s not really the column width that’s the problem, but rather limitations in the software. Many beautiful books are set in single-column justified pages, but they have been properly typeset. Word documents simply should not be justified.
Sure, justified text looks neat and tidy on the page, but that polish comes at a cost. The hidden downside is those awkward, uneven spaces between words—what designers lovingly call “rivers of white space.” These rivers can disrupt the natural flow of reading and, for some, make text downright unreadable.
People with dyslexia (like me), visual impairments, or cognitive disabilities are particularly affected. They rely on predictable spacing and alignment to guide their eyes across a page. When the spaces between words stretch and squeeze like a bad game of Tetris, it throws off their ability to process the text.
So, while justified text might win points for symmetry, it loses big when it comes to usability.
Sabr, sorry, my friend. I’m sticking with left-aligned. 😉