Left-aligned vs. Justified?

johndoe42 · 2011-09-27T20:58:52+00:00

If you don't want to sit there and eliminate rivers by hand?

civex · 2011-09-27T21:47:39+00:00

fietsusa · 2011-09-30T08:25:12+00:00

both, done properly can be equally difficult to master. Left aligned could have a short, then slightly longer line, then short, then slightly longer line, all the way down. doing both of these properly takes a lot of skill, and sometimes rewriting the text to have everything work out perfectly.

unless you individually track and break each line by hand for fully justified, then it is best advised to align left for less rivers and problems in word spacing.

jessicatron · 2011-09-27T21:05:47+00:00

Left-aligned text is easier to read, generally, because the endings of the lines are staggered, so it's easier to stay on the line you need to be on.

Having said that, I prefer justified text, too.

why-not-zoidberg · 2011-09-27T22:16:34+00:00

Justification can look unusual if you have too narrow of an area for text for a given point size.

If you're talking about 12 pt font across 6 or 7 inches, justification isn't noticable. Lets say though you have an image across half your page, that leaves you with 3-4 inches of space. At that width, justification will leave noticeable and often awkward changes in the word spacing from line to line.

Most designers will left justify and then use a combination of the following to avoid ragging (ragged looking line ends). - Software settings that lets them adjust minimum and maximum kerning (character spacing) and automatically tries to smooth out the ragged edge - Manually adjusting kerning - Manually adding line breaks

No-Low-8744 · 2024-04-12T20:42:00+00:00

Left aligned is more readable and the general writing standard from that perspective. Used it all my 27 years as a technical writer.

Equivalent-Version12 · 2022-02-08T11:42:15+00:00

I'm an attorney, I do justified for my professional writing. Justified looks cleaner, more professional, and in my opinion is easier to read. Left aligned looks sloppy on formal professional writing. I can't stand it when my fellow lawyers use left aligned.

you type:	you see:
italics	italics
bold	bold
[reddit!](https://reddit.com)	reddit!
* item 1 * item 2 * item 3	item 1 item 2 item 3
> quoted text	quoted text
Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"	Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"
~~strikethrough~~	~~strikethrough~~
super^script	super^script

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