Does the kindle do auto-justification?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

However, neither one over-rules the publishers explicit paragraph by paragraph layout specification. So if the publisher forces "left" or "justify" you are stuck with this.

Which is exactly why my Mobi tutorial recommends removing the "align=justify" that BD gives every paragraph by default. That way it gives the user the choice whether to view the text justified or not.

[Kruskal]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

Selecting "Left Justification" on the Kindle does make this the default, and some may prefer this.

I would normally prefer FULL justification, but with such a narrow screen and no hyphenation, I find LEFT is the way to go. It won't even break a word which is, itself, hyphenated at the hyphen to justify better.

Vincent

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Kruskal

I would normally prefer FULL justification, but with such a narrow screen and no hyphenation, I find LEFT is the way to go. It won't even break a word which is, itself, hyphenated at the hyphen to justify better.

You should never hyphenate a word with a hyphen in it since you then cannot tell what the word is.

Typographical I think it is more important to have good hyphenation when using only left justification. Without hyphenation you will get "pattern" that disturbs the reading. I have noticed this and it is also something I read about in a typography book or similar.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by tompe

You should never hyphenate a word with a hyphen in it since you then cannot tell what the word is.

I don't think the previous poster was referring to hypenating a word with a hyphen in it, but to breaking the line at the hyphen in a word which has one. That's certainly a "legitimate" thing to do, but something which MobiPocket Reader (and presumably the Kindle) doesn't support.

[JSWolf]

The problem is that The 505 & Gen3 do not support hyphenation. That would go a long way to eliminating the need or want to left justification.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I don't think the previous poster was referring to hypenating a word with a hyphen in it, but to breaking the line at the hyphen in a word which has one.

That was what I meant. And you should not do it since you introduce an uncertainty about what the word is. Don't english have words that have different meaning with and without a hyphen?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by tompe

That was what I meant. And you should not do it since you introduce an uncertainty about what the word is. Don't english have words that have different meaning with and without a hyphen?

I can't think of any such words, off-hand. Take that word, I've just used, though: "off-hand". It's completely standard in English to "break" such words over a line end, ie end one line with "off-" and start the next line with "hand". Virtually all printed books do this.

Is this not done in Swedish?

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I can't think of any such words, off-hand. Take that word, I've just used, though: "off-hand". It's completely standard in English to "break" such words over a line end, ie end one line with "off-" and start the next line with "hand". Virtually all printed books do this.

Is this not done in Swedish?

I think I got the rule from TeX and literature about it. Maybe it is not a word but "pre-tend" and "pretend" seems to me to be an example. In Swedish such examples are probably more common since we create new word by concatenating two words.

And when reading your brain have to do more work since if you have "off-hand" the you will read "offhand" and it will be harder to understand. Since typographical rules are there to enhance readability I think it is a good rule never to break the line at a hyphen.

[tompe]

Found a better example at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyphen

Most text systems consider a hyphen to be a word boundary and a valid point at which to break a line when flowing text. However, this is not always desirable behavior, especially when it could lead to ambiguity (such as in the examples given before, where ‘recreation’ and ‘re-creation’ would be indistinguishable).

Most text system does not justify text as good as TeX either.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by tompe

Found a better example at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyphen



Most text system does nut justify text as good as TeX either.

Too true. The hyphenation done by BD is terrible and very difficult to read the text reasonably. You really need a hyphen dictionary to do a good job.

Even without hyphenation full justification can look pretty good with kerning but none of the electrical systems seem to support that.

Dale

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by tompe

I think I got the rule from TeX and literature about it. Maybe it is not a word but "pre-tend" and "pretend" seems to me to be an example. In Swedish such examples are probably more common since we create new word by concatenating two words.

And when reading your brain have to do more work since if you have "off-hand" the you will read "offhand" and it will be harder to understand. Since typographical rules are there to enhance readability I think it is a good rule never to break the line at a hyphen.

English, however, is a very "flexible" language and most grammar rules can be "broken". In the majority of hypenated words, it's perfectly OK to leave out the hypen. I like to put them in, so I write "off-hand", but many people would leave it out and write "offhand". Both are equally "right" (or "wrong").

Your example of "re-creation" v. "recreation" is a good example where the hyphen does change the meaning, but any native English speaker could immediately tell from the context which was meant in any particular sentence.

As I say, virtually all printed books will break lines at a hyphen, but it's something that no e-book format (that I know of) does currently do.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

English, however, is a very "flexible" language and most grammar rules can be "broken". In the majority of hypenated words, it's perfectly OK to leave out the hypen. I like to put them in, so I write "off-hand", but many people would leave it out and write "offhand". Both are equally "right" (or "wrong").

Your example of "re-creation" v. "recreation" is a good example where the hyphen does change the meaning, but any native English speaker could immediately tell from the context which was meant in any particular sentence.

As I say, virtually all printed books will break lines at a hyphen, but it's something that no e-book format (that I know of) does currently do.

My eB1150 breaks lines at hyphens and it supports the SHY (soft hyphen) HTML code.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

As I say, virtually all printed books will break lines at a hyphen, but it's something that no e-book format (that I know of) does currently do.

Are you sure of that? It is hard to check since it is not so common. I checked some books now but could not fins any examples. So I am not convinced that you are right. But I will from now look for this. Actually i cannot remember ever having seen it.

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by HarryT

As I say, virtually all printed books will break lines at a hyphen, but it's something that no e-book format (that I know of) does currently do.

I don't think this is a format issue, but rather a reader issue. For example, FBReader does automatic hyphenation no matter what format it is reading:

Liang's algorithm is used. The same algorithm is used in TeX, and TeX hyphenation patterns are used in FBReader.

I have not noticed what FBReader does with actual (and soft) hypens, but I assume they line break as expected.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

I don't think this is a format issue, but rather a reader issue.

What has been done on printed text can indicate what the typographical rule is.

For example, FBReader does automatic hyphenation no matter what format it is reading: I have not noticed what FBReader does with actual (and soft) hypens, but I assume they line break as expected.

But it did it badly on a file containing only re-creation since it in one instance did:

re-cre-
ation