Subject: Ragged right (was: Updated materials)

From: Invent Yourself <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2002 10:55:34 -0500 (EST)

On Wed, 3 Apr 2002, Jim Carter wrote:

> On Wed, 3 Apr 2002, Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
> > > (Robin Turner <[email-masked]>):
> > > Looks good - congratualations to Nick! Only one gripe- it's nice to
> see a
> > > PDF version, but it would be better if the lines were justified
> rather than
> > > ragged right. The same is true of PS output from the teX version.
> >
> > Ick. Why? The publishing industry has been moving away from
> > justified text for years, since ragged-right text is almost always
> > more readable. Why bring it back?
>
> Hmmm. Of the technical journals I come into contact with, only
> Communications of the ACM is ragged right, and I find it harder to read.
> Looking at my own running text, I think it looks a lot better justified
> than ragged right.

The eye only needs to be able to predict where the next line starts
because that's where it jumps to. The eye never jumps to the end of a
line, and so never needs to be able to predict where that is. So there's
no need to introduce unpredictable spacings, which intrude on the eye's
ability to predict where the next WORD is, in order to ease a task it will
never perform.

These links say ragged right is easier:
http://www.deakin.edu.au/~agoodman/scc110/lecture11.pdf
http://writing.colostate.edu/references/documents/desktop_publishing/pop5u.cfm
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/archives/9509/techwhirl-9509-00438.html
http://www.paralegals.org/Reporter/Winter00/pg14.htm
http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:GjjII7fkyegC:www.unm.edu/~jerome/tech_com.htm+readability+ragged&hl=en&lr=lang_en

This one is neutral:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-html/1996May/0363.html

This one says its harder.
http://eserver.org/courses/w01/tc510/hades/kaltenbach1.htm

-- 
"You know, it's a funny thing, every one of the bastards that are out for
legalizing marijuana is Jewish. What the Christ is the matter with the
Jews, Bob? What is the matter with them? I suppose it is because most of
them are psychiatrists." -- President Nixon, 26 May 1971