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Ron's post is good in that it points to most of the issues with rag-right. You can use justification if you have sophisticated typesetting equipment. Otherwise, it tends to look weird with "rivers" in it.
A point about readability: If you remove the bottom half of characters done in lower case, you can still read at approximately the same rate. If you remove the top half, you can't read at all. We typically read the upper half of the characters. That's why it is easier to read lc as opposed to caps. Just a bit of trivia.
Dave
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+david -dot- hailey=usu -dot- edu -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+david -dot- hailey=usu -dot- edu -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of Ron Hearn
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2008 12:19 PM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: RE: Justified versus ragged right
CMOS recommends ragged right in its discussion of Justification. I also
have heard that ragged-right text is better because with justified text,
all lines are the same length and thus harder to read (same as with text
written in all caps). The eyes respond faster to variations in black on
white pages than text that is all the same length. Also with justified
text, you can get those bizarre looking stretched words or spaces to
make the line the required length when there aren't enough words on the
line to fill it.
Ron
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+rhearn=cucbc -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+rhearn=cucbc -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf
Of Sean Brierley
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2008 11:08 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Justified versus ragged right
Hi all,
Looking for a resource that discusses and compares justified and
ragged-right text in terms of readability.
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