Justified text or not?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

They do when you read them on your phone.

Full-justified chapter headings, poetry and book content which is supposed to represent a handwritten letter are definite no-nos for me.

Most chapter headers are centered. There are some that are left justified or right justified but those are a pretty small number.

To me, I'm not bothered if a handwritten note/letter is fully justified.

But I may leave them as left-justified if that's how it is in the CSS and see how I get on.

As for my phone, your correct given the smaller screen.

[JeanPierre]

Ragged right (left-aligned) without hyphenation is optimal for reading speed.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by JeanPierre

Ragged right (left-aligned) without hyphenation is optimal for reading speed.

I am going to have to disagree with this.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I am going to have to disagree with this.

And I am going to have to disagree with you. I've read justified and I've read ragged right and, for me, ragged right is preferred by far.

[JeanPierre]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I am going to have to disagree with this.

I did not give an opinion.

[Aleron Ives]

Originally Posted by JeanPierre

I did not give an opinion.

Do you have peer-reviewed studies demonstrating that unjustified text promotes faster reading speed in samples that are representative of the general reading population? If you only have anecdotal evidence that unjustified text is faster, then that would qualify as your opinion, not a fact. Even a single study would not be enough evidence to declare that unjustified text is universally superior to justified text for reading speed.

[JeanPierre]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

Do you have peer-reviewed studies demonstrating that unjustified text promotes faster reading speed in samples that are representative of the general reading population? If you only have anecdotal evidence that unjustified text is faster, then that would qualify as your opinion, not a fact. Even a single study would not be enough evidence to declare that unjustified text is universally superior to justified text for reading speed.

Your mileage won't vary.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by JeanPierre

Your mileage won't vary.

Sounds like you did indeed give an opinion then.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Most chapter headers are centered. There are some that are left justified or right justified but those are a pretty small number.

To me, I'm not bothered if a handwritten note/letter is fully justified.

In the end, you are undoubtedly correct. Like I said, I also spend likely too much time messing with my books.

At any rate, I think we agree it is better to set justification in body text than to force it via the device.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

In the end, you are undoubtedly correct. Like I said, I also spend likely too much time messing with my books.

At any rate, I think we agree it is better to set justification in body text than to force it via the device.

That we do agree on. But you have Amazon to thank for that not happening because Amazon doesn't like text-align in the body even though it does work.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

That we do agree on. But you have Amazon to thank for that not happening because Amazon doesn't like text-align in the body even though it does work.

Not at all. It depends on the publisher. For instance, Open Road books reliably have good formatting. Others, it just depends.

[JeanPierre]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Sounds like you did indeed give an opinion then.

I'm afraid you've misread. I said your mileage won't vary. The expression you may be familiar with is "your mileage will vary". I did not give an opinion. If you want to optimize for reading speed, use ragged right and disable hyphenation.

I'm afraid I do not have the appetite to summarize, synthesize and present the decades of research that have established this, except to point you to https://scholar.google.com/schhp.

Happy reading, however you choose to do so.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JeanPierre

I'm afraid you've misread. I said your mileage won't vary. The expression you may be familiar with is "your mileage will vary". I did not give an opinion. If you want to optimize for reading speed, use ragged right and disable hyphenation.

I'm afraid I do not have the appetite to summarize, synthesize and present the decades of research that have established this, except to point you to https://scholar.google.com/schhp.

Happy reading, however you choose to do so.

A while back, I looked at quite a few publications that discussed the effect of typesetting on reading speed and comprehension. While there seemed to be a general agreement that, on the average, ragged right increased reading speed without any comprehension loss, most of speed increases were relatively small and there was a significant number of participants for whom reading fully justified text was took less time, i.e. they read faster.

Basically, you can't say ragged right will increase reading speed for a specific person but rather that a large group will show a relatively small increase in reading speed.

[JeanPierre]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Basically, you can't say ragged right will increase reading speed for a specific person but rather that a large group will show a relatively small increase in reading speed.

For every specific person, if you want to determine what is their reading speed, you will test them with text that is not hyphenated, with a ragged right margin, and at least 13 words per line.

That is because for every specific person, that is how they will achieve their fastest reading speed.

The end.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by JeanPierre

For every specific person, if you want to determine what is their reading speed, you will test them with text that is not hyphenated, with a ragged right margin, and at least 13 words per line.

That is because for every specific person, that is how they will achieve their fastest reading speed.

The end.

I do read ragged right, and I still call BS. "Every specific person" is a nonsense. Some people do read faster justified, while LOTS of people read scripts written from right-to-left, and some read scripts written vertically rather than horizontally. To insists that there is one absolute optimum that works without exception for every single literate person is a mountain of merde.