4 ms·

I always wondered why people don't use text-align: justify more often. Is this really a reason? What about all the books out there? Why are Web pages different?

I always wondered why people don't use text-align: justify more often. Is this really a reason? What about all the books out there? Why are Web pages different? (I get the feeling I am missing something obvious.)

perdunov 12y ago
The justify only works out (i.e. not too ugly) with certain text sizes and page widths. I guess in books it is much easier to make a decent layout because the page size is fixed. Another thing is that, actually, design has come a long way and many modern websites look way better than many older books. Edit: Yep, totally forgot about hyphenation. I guess I haven't seen hyphenated text in a long time, as everything in web is unhyphenated.
aw3c2 12y ago
Hyphenation. Browser support is not good and so words usually are not hyphenated which leads to stretching whitespace. http://caniuse.com/#feat=css-hyphens http://caniuse.com/#feat=css-hyphens
- sp332 12y ago
  It looks like browsers only support it with a prefix like -moz-. Doesn't that mean it's not even a standard yet?
bradleyland 12y ago
Experience: One of my primary clients when I ran an agency for 7 years was a book publishers. You'd fall over if you saw the subtlety of the tools and the amount of effort that goes in to typesetting a book with justified body text. It is not at all unusual for a publisher to employ staff specifically for the task of typesetting. In the final stages of book production, the typesetters are assigned sections of the book after all edits are complete (ha! in a perfect world), at which point they meticulously review each page of text, often manually inserting/removing hyphenation, until the text is laid out correctly. Care to venture a guess at the number of bloggers who do the same when using 'text-align: justify'?
- Already__Taken 12y ago
  I assume justifying text is to primarily maximise the amount of text on the paper to make a cheaper book. It shouldn't even exist on the web.
  - wtbob 12y ago
    Justification doesn't change the amount of text on the paper; it spreads out lines which would otherwise have a ragged right edge (in left-to-right languages) so that the text has a visually appealing right edge. It's done to look good, and succeeds. But it requires work to do right.
    - joshuapants 12y ago
      > Justification doesn't change the amount of text on the paper You can fit more characters per line in a justified layout. > It's done to look good, and succeeds. But it requires work to do right. Absolutely, but well executed left-alignment can also look good, and in a format where you don't necessarily have control over the size of the page and the time to properly justify the text it should be preferred. IMO, left-alignment beats poorly justified text every time.
      - falsedan 12y ago
        > You can fit more characters per line in a justified layout. no you can't
        joshuapants 12y ago
        Kerned properly, you absolutely can. Please don't make authoritative statements if you've only ever justified text by highlighting a paragraph and having the computer do it automatically. editing to be a bit more descriptive: Here's an example: http://i.stack.imgur.com/ahM5C.png http://i.stack.imgur.com/ahM5C.png With hyphenation and acceptable kerning, the justified text has more characters per line.

perdunov 12y ago

The justify only works out (i.e. not too ugly) with certain text sizes and page widths. I guess in books it is much easier to make a decent layout because the page size is fixed. Another thing is that, actually, design has come a long way and many modern websites look way better than many older books. Edit: Yep, totally forgot about hyphenation. I guess I haven't seen hyphenated text in a long time, as everything in web is unhyphenated.

aw3c2 12y ago

Hyphenation. Browser support is not good and so words usually are not hyphenated which leads to stretching whitespace. http://caniuse.com/#feat=css-hyphens http://caniuse.com/#feat=css-hyphens

sp332 12y ago
It looks like browsers only support it with a prefix like -moz-. Doesn't that mean it's not even a standard yet?

bradleyland 12y ago

Experience: One of my primary clients when I ran an agency for 7 years was a book publishers. You'd fall over if you saw the subtlety of the tools and the amount of effort that goes in to typesetting a book with justified body text. It is not at all unusual for a publisher to employ staff specifically for the task of typesetting. In the final stages of book production, the typesetters are assigned sections of the book after all edits are complete (ha! in a perfect world), at which point they meticulously review each page of text, often manually inserting/removing hyphenation, until the text is laid out correctly. Care to venture a guess at the number of bloggers who do the same when using 'text-align: justify'?

Already__Taken 12y ago
I assume justifying text is to primarily maximise the amount of text on the paper to make a cheaper book. It shouldn't even exist on the web.
- wtbob 12y ago
  Justification doesn't change the amount of text on the paper; it spreads out lines which would otherwise have a ragged right edge (in left-to-right languages) so that the text has a visually appealing right edge. It's done to look good, and succeeds. But it requires work to do right.
  - joshuapants 12y ago
    > Justification doesn't change the amount of text on the paper You can fit more characters per line in a justified layout. > It's done to look good, and succeeds. But it requires work to do right. Absolutely, but well executed left-alignment can also look good, and in a format where you don't necessarily have control over the size of the page and the time to properly justify the text it should be preferred. IMO, left-alignment beats poorly justified text every time.
    - falsedan 12y ago
      > You can fit more characters per line in a justified layout. no you can't
      - joshuapants 12y ago
        Kerned properly, you absolutely can. Please don't make authoritative statements if you've only ever justified text by highlighting a paragraph and having the computer do it automatically. editing to be a bit more descriptive: Here's an example: http://i.stack.imgur.com/ahM5C.png http://i.stack.imgur.com/ahM5C.png With hyphenation and acceptable kerning, the justified text has more characters per line.