[Hitch]

Originally Posted by bookman156

Small window is always 'my reader'. If it looks crap in what I have, then I go for something that doesn't, ie unjustified. I think on Kobo you can justify it if it comes unjustified, can't you?

I don't use a KOBO for reading that much and I honestly don't remember. If we wait 5 minutes, Wolfie will come and enlighten us.

On 'my reader', I see 'Alignment' is 'Not Available'. Are you saying that's because I specified it as align-left?

If you mean that you do have align: left, then yes, that's what that generally means.

But if I specified it as justified maybe they won't be able to change it to unjustified either. I don't know. All I can do is make what I think is the right aesthetic decision. And, as you say, few change their settings so if I supplied justified then some may hate it as much as I do because it isn't accomplished properly in the device.

If you're making it for yourself, do whatever floats your boat. For your readers/buyers--don't align it at all. That way, they can choose what they want.

Overall of course I prefer justified. Back when I did handset letterpress I would spend hours justifying lead type text by hand, and I must admit I spend just as long on H&J violations in InDesign these days.

Yeah--it's hard to overlook. Just today, LOL, I had to explain to this customer--whom, by the way, has gone to great lengths to express to me her trade publishing experiences, as an 'editor,' etc. why iBooks didn't have the same line-count on all pages. (We have W/O turned "on" to 2 lines, I think it is.) You'd think she'd have noticed, wouldn't you? I mean, if the fact that the pages didn't square across the...well, for lack of a better word, the gutter, was so problematic, how come her hugely-trained expert eye didn't instantly see that 99% of those instances were orphans???? (or would have been, without the W/O coding.0

In my view, there is nothing uglier than badly justified text.

And that sentiment is lovely--in its place. We have no opportunity to kern, track and barely to lead, in eBooks. Thus, we have to be content with what we CAN do, not with what we cannot.

Originally Posted by bookman156

As the only way to guarantee beautifully justified text is in print and PDF, I completely eschew it in other places. Sometimes the reader who prefers it just isn't right.

Yes, well, as I'm the reader and it's my eyes--I am right. It matters hugely not to foist our own choices and prejudices--if they exist--on our clients' readers. Right? Right.

Hitch