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View Poll Results: What is your preferred justification
Left Justify 93 38.91%
Justified 120 50.21%
Don't care 26 10.88%
Voters: 239. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 08-29-2010, 11:18 PM   #1
simonroyle
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Formatting an eBook - Left justify or Justified

Hi MR's,

I've been doing a lot (too much) reading about formatting eBooks. One comment I hear from "professionals" is that;
"nothing screams amateur like ragged right text"
What do you guys think? You're the readers - does it make a huge difference, and, more importantly, what do you prefer?

Thanks,
Simon
Author of Tag - A thriller set in the near future
www.simon-royle.com
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Old 08-29-2010, 11:24 PM   #2
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Justified is generally not pleasant to read. I would rather have a gap at the end of the line then one in the middle. Looks neat at a glance, but especially ugly on ereader. Still all centered is worse
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Old 08-29-2010, 11:35 PM   #3
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Until e-readers can properly handle full justification, I'll prefer ragged right. (Though a more accurate answer is probably that I prefer whichever I notice least.)
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Old 08-29-2010, 11:44 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by simonroyle View Post
"nothing screams amateur like ragged right text"
Sounds about right. In the modern days of word processors, that is more or less unjustifiable.
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Old 08-30-2010, 12:04 AM   #5
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Poll needs a "too many variables" option so JeremyZ can call them outliers.
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Old 08-30-2010, 12:12 AM   #6
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Proper justification, which includes the ability to hyphenate on the fly, is always best. I agree that I'd rather have left-justify over a reader that full justifies simply by stretching the gap between words.

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Old 08-30-2010, 02:13 AM   #7
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Justified -- definitely. I think an ebook should look like a printed book. Em dashes, smart quotes, chapters and section beginnings not indented (a pet hate).

Readers want ebooks to look like printed books, or I would imagine so.
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Old 08-30-2010, 02:17 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Luke King View Post
Readers want ebooks to look like printed books, or I would imagine so.
While I'd agree I'd like there to be obvious chapter breaks, section breaks and paragraphs (either indented or with extra space, I'm not picky), I don't necessarily want my eBook to look like the book.

I like having the ability to change the font size or face, for example. And given the current rendering of full justification on most eBook readers, I prefer left-justified text. I find the gaping spaces between words more distracting than "ragged right".

Ultimately, I want to get lost in the book, not distracted by the formatting!
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Old 08-30-2010, 02:26 AM   #9
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I find left justified horrible. It gives too many distractions. I can't, in one blink of an eye, see how long the paragraph is, unless there is an empty line between paragraphs (and I loathe those).

I'm a person that doesn't read word for word, but reads sentences and paragraphs (looking for structure). Maybe that's the reason why I can't stand left-justified texts..
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Old 08-30-2010, 04:17 AM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by simonroyle View Post
what do you prefer?

Thanks,
Simon
Author of Tag - A thriller set in the near future
www.simon-royle.com
I prefer justified text, but most of all I prefer to be able to choose for myself on the rare occasions fully justified text doesn't work - that is, I like to be able to toggle between fully justified and ragged right.

Regards, Alex
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Old 08-30-2010, 04:24 AM   #11
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I generally much prefer full justification over left justification, but I have recently read a couple of books with left justification (error in formatting) and I was surprised that it bothered me a lot less than I thought it would - at least I didn't bother to do anything about fixing the problem.
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Old 08-30-2010, 04:28 AM   #12
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I prefer justified, no doubt. I also like rather small font size, so automatic justification has fewer problems (it's easier to find good break points).

But I prefer books created with no default alignment. Let the reader justify or not the text.
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Old 08-30-2010, 10:27 AM   #13
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Fully justified -- there's just no comparison. However, I grok the comment about poor justification -- large whitespace gaps, improper hyphenation.

About a month ago I purchased a new reader -- a Sibrary -- and have been quite pleasantly surprised at just how well it handles justification. It's hyphenation algorithm is superb -- in a month of reading (ca. ten books) I've only seen it make two mistakes.

Another feature that the Sibrary really impresses with is text resizing. It has fourteen levels of resize, from 23 lines per screen / 10-12 words per line all the way up to 6 lines per screen / 3ish words per line. It's only at about the three largest settings that whitespace gaps start becoming noticeable.

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Old 08-30-2010, 10:34 AM   #14
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I don't mind left justified at all. As a matter of fact, I think full justification on a small screen would look like a big block of unvaried text to me.
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Old 08-30-2010, 10:51 AM   #15
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I find it interesting so many prefer full-justification over left-justify as the natural way to right, in our right-to-left conventions anyway, is left-justify. How many hand written or typed papers have you ever wrote that were full-justified?

I find reading more natural when left justified with irregular line lengths...what I find annoying is the very odd kerning that can happen to satisfy full justification. Plus I just do not like reading in a box.
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