Re: Left vs Full Justification

[Newton Vasconcellos <mendv -at- AX -dot- APC -dot- ORG>]

In Brazil, full justification is the norm.

So, I was highly surprised when, after dropping PageMaker in favor of
QuarkXpress and later on FrameMaker for my DTP needs, I needed to go back to
PageMaker (5). I found that it indicates loose line spacing with a shade in
front of the line. As soon as you resolve the situation (I mostly hyphenate
- manually, for the algorithm works for English, but not as well for
Portuguese), the shaded area disappears. Very practical.

[]

Newton D. Vasconcellos
mendv -at- ax -dot- apc -dot- org
Rio de Janeiro

----------------------------------------------

At 09:39 17/05/96 HST, you wrote:
>>        Several posters have pointed out the conventional reasons for
>preferring left justification to full justification.
>        However, I think a distinction has to be made between methods of full
>justification. If full justification is achieved by adjusting space between
>words (as it is in most word processors), then the result is frequently as bad
>as convention says. But if full justification is achieved by automatically
>adjusting spaces between letters (a somewhat less common technique), then
the re
>sult is much easier to read--and tends to eliminate hyphenation, which also
>affects readability.<
>   Now you've done it! You've got me curious about what justification method is
>used by Word, WPWIN, WordPro, PageMaker, et al. WPWIN offers separate
>adjustable settings for Word and Letter spacing, but I don't know how (or if)
>those affect WPWIN's decision about where to add space when justifying text.
>Hmm, let me try something here ... Well, just from a printout, it looks like
>both WP and Word put extra space between the words. BTW, Word put more space
>between words than WP did, so the lines broke differently.
>   I don't have WordPro on this machine. PageMaker5's output shows no sign of
>additional spacing between words. It must use microjustification?
>   Microjustification is what it's called, I believe, when character spacing is
>adjusted when justifying text. I used to have a text-only wordprocessor (on the
>lowly Commodore 64, of all things!) that did beautiful microjustification on my
>old Brother daisywheel printer. Kind of sad that today's powerhouses seem to
>have dropped this in favor of the inferior method. Or maybe it's an optional
>setting somewhere in Word/WP/WordPro?
>   Anyway, enough talking about screwdrivers! I've heard that left justified
>text is easier to read because the ragged right helps the eye find it's place
>easier. But nearly every modern paperback (text heavy things, set in small
>type) uses full justification. Anyone know of any readability studies we could
>refer to?

>David Jones, Technical Writer
>David_Jones/KSBEISD -dot- KSBEISD -at- Datahub -dot- com
>Kamehameha Schools Bishop Estate

>DISCLAIMER:
>"I do not speak for my employer, my computer, or any other living thing."

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