Fully Justified or Ragged Edge?

[StanByk]

I vaguely remember having read/heard that left-justified text is thought to be more readable and even more legible. Can't give you a reference though.

[Latinandgreek]

I quite like the ragged right. It grew on me.

[FizzyWater]

Seems to me, there are as many opinions here as members. And, as a quick Google search shows, I think it's true "out there" as well as "in here"...

My search was readability left justified

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The best option is not to hard-code justification at all, and allow the user to select whichever form of justification they prefer.

I agree that this would be the best option since it would allow everyone to choose what pleases them. The same ebook could be adjusted on the ereader to accomodate different screen widths since full justification tends to work better on wider screens.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

At 8-12 words/line, similar to paperbacks, full justification looks much nicer, and the extra spaces usually aren't distracting. At 4-6 words/line, which I sometimes use when my eyes get tired, full justification often results in annoying gaps between words.

When I'm making PDFs to fit my reader, I use left justification.

Since I use a larger base size (13 points) I do the same when making PDFs for my ereader to avoid the large gaps between the words. For me, it provides the best-looking results.

[sakura-panda]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Let me rephrase it. A greater number of people expressed a preference for full justification than for left justification.

I never even bothered to open that thread because not only do I not care, but I couldn't even tell you if any of my books are one or the other. They might all be right justified and I wouldn't even notice.

However, having the text all centered, with jagged edges on both sides, would bother me.

[MrPLD]

This is going to be an interesting event for me then when my K3 (sorry,my -wife's- K3) arrives.

I work with typesetting languages such as LaTeX a lot and they do a very nice job with full justification without being silly, but the whole TeX system is so delightfully tuned that almost everything comes out beautiful.

One would think that however with e-readers and their significantly lower resolution it may well be a futile task beyond a certain font pt size.

Just checked on my Linux eBook reader with my wife's publication, seems at the default fonts/screen-size full justification appears acceptable.

Paul
http://elitadaniels.com

[GeoffC]

shame there is no latex=>epub routines.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by GeoffC

shame there is no latex=>epub routines.

Would be pretty useless for typesetting, though. At most, you could convert the LaTeX source into XHTML (and there are converters for this), but the former is rendered/typeset by TeX, while the latter is by whatever HTML rendering engine the ePUB reader uses, and there's nothing a converter can do about it.

There is, however, nothing that prevents an HTML renderer using TeX's algorithms for typesetting.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Jellby

Would be pretty useless for typesetting, though. At most, you could convert the LaTeX source into XHTML (and there are converters for this), but the former is rendered/typeset by TeX, while the latter is by whatever HTML rendering engine the ePUB reader uses, and there's nothing a converter can do about it.

Isn't one of the fundamental concepts of HTML that it supplies "semantic" information, but leaves it up to the display engine to decide how to display it? Eg, HMTL says "I want this text to be emphatic", but doesn't specify how that emphasizing should be carried out. That seems fundamentally at odds with the goal of typesetting, which is all about display, rather than meaning.

[Jellby]

The typesetting information is not included in the HTML, indeed, but since the moment the HTML is presented in some visual way, there is typesetting in the works... and ePUB readers could use good typesetting instead of the lousy one they currently use.

I don't say the HTML source should include any specific, low-level typesetting instructions, but the HTML renderer could do a better automatic job with the defaults. For instance, the line-breaking algorithm is usually poor, working on a line-by-line basis; it could consider the whole paragraph for line-breaking. There could be some automatic hypenation, maybe not perfect, but better than nothing.

[MrPLD]

Well, as it is, LaTeX doesn't entirely convey typesetting information either, rather it's derived from the environment in which the text exists. So, as said, it'd be nice to have a HTML/XHTML/ePub/* rendering engine that took a bit more effort towards producing well set output... of course it will be considerably slower quite likely. :\

[GeoffC]

Of course, one could just use LaTex and generate more than adequate PDF files of an appropriate size.

(hides behind sofa)

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by GeoffC

Of course, one could just use LaTex and generate more than adequate PDF files of an appropriate size.

Or use Prince to create PDFs from ePUB, with better typesetting than standard HTML renderers

[neilmarr]

It takes a lot of technical fiddling to make fully justified text look good and without the awkward word spacing that is often produced by an auto composition (some lines must be individually left-justified and following text adjusted accordingly).

Most who convert text to various formats can't be bothered (I exclude my own wee house, which takes great care in every format conversion to rectify word spacing in justified formats line-by-line), so generally, left justification is a cleaner read. You very soon become comfortable with the ragged right (with no end-of-line words broken by hyphens, wich so often annoyingly happens in print, and is really annoying).

Letters and postcards from home have ragged right edges and we all love those, no?

My advice ... get used to it.

I believe some devices automatically justify. Thankfully, mine doesn't.

Very best. Neil

[MrPLD]

Ah well, maybe in a few years we'll get to the point where eReaders can just accept raw LaTeX