Full Justified or Left Justified?

[BelleZora]

At first I thought I prefer left-aligned, but now realize it must be irrelevant to me. I'm several hundred pages into Stephen King's Under The Dome and I have no idea whether it is full or left justified.

I wonder what our preferences or obliviousness denote about our personalities.

[haydnfan]

Left for fiction and full for nonfiction.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You probably don't want to have poetry fully justified, for example, do you?

Clever comment.

I rarely read poetry and never had on an eReader. I tonight downloaded two Overdrive Kindle books of poetry, and found that with my preferred large print, I need to set the pages in landscape to avoid lots of confusing word wraps. But, that way, both books did properly left justify.

When we see a major presence of poetry lovers on mobileread, perhaps that will mean paper books are truly dying. Or is there such a presence and I've missed it?

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

Is this like the vi vs. emacs religious wars?

(Only *old* Unix geeks will understand)

teco for the win!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by PeterT

teco for the win!

I'll do you one better. MSDOS Edit for the win.

[Iphinome]

Left justified, loose lines drive me crazy.

[AlexBell]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I didn't forget. I want the answer to be one or the other. I don't want a doesn't matter type answer.

Would you accept an 'it depends' answer?

I prefer
- full justification for current fiction which tends not to have frequent long words
- probably left aligned for 18th or 19th century fiction with many repeated long words, and for current non-fiction with long technical words
- definitely left aligned sections in any genre which has a bibliography, references, or footnotes - that is, justified in text, left aligned in bibliography etc.
- and as Harry points out definitely left aligned for poetry.

For what it is worth I do not like being forced into an either/or response.

[meeera]

And what about people who prefer to read centred text, eh?

[piperclassique]

BTW, surely one can only use justified when the text fills the line. Ragged either end has to be aligned, yes?
Of course, we could make dreadful puns about justification by Works.

Hat, coat, gloves

[kovidgoyal]

But, surely, only fully justified is a fully justified choice?

[afv011]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I just said it somewhere else: Those who don't care ... don't care. Those who do care, are going to change it the way they like it anyway.


Well sure ... nothing like seeing who wins the battle between the more manageable number of extremists.

Exactly. I don't care, most times I don't even notice what kind of justification the book has.

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

But, surely, only fully justified is a fully justified choice?

[MikeB1972]

Depends on the screen and font size in use at the time, I prefer fully justified if enough words fit on a line but ragged edge if it will leave big gaps.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Clever comment.

I rarely read poetry and never had on an eReader. I tonight downloaded two Overdrive Kindle books of poetry, and found that with my preferred large print, I need to set the pages in landscape to avoid lots of confusing word wraps. But, that way, both books did properly left justify.

When we see a major presence of poetry lovers on mobileread, perhaps that will mean paper books are truly dying. Or is there such a presence and I've missed it?

Not intended to be "clever" - just pointing out that preferences can be different according to what one's reading. It's not a "one size fits all" answer.

[MickiTee]

Left justified for me. I can't stand lines with only a few words but lots of spaces.