Re: Using ragged right in technical publications

Subject: Re: Using ragged right in technical publications
From: Kathryn Marshall <kmarshall -at- MODACAD -dot- COM>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 17:03:39 -0700

That's funny because I've heard the exact opposite - that ragged right
edged text is easier to read. Of course, I just "heard" this. But I
personally agree with it. A company I used to work for used justified
text because they thought it looked neater, but it caused some words to
be stretched or bunched together, which IMHO, made it very difficult to
read (especially because they also used special fonts for keywords, user
input, etc.).

$0.02,
Kathryn

----------
From: Holly Turner [SMTP:hturner -at- HARBINGER -dot- COM]
Sent: Monday, September 15, 1997 2:18 PM
To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
Subject: Re: Using ragged right in technical publications

C. Wheildon, the author, does not comment on the type of
justification
used in the study. The study was done sometime between
1982-1995 by the
author himself.

>----------
>From:
>
jburgcha -at- pestilence -dot- itc -dot- nrcs -dot- usda -dot- gov[SMTP:jburgcha -at- pestilence -dot- itc -dot- nrcs -dot-
usda
>.gov]
>Sent: Monday, September 15, 1997 5:06 PM
>To: Holly Turner
>Subject: Re: Using ragged right in technical publications
>
>I find that very surprising. Is that a recent study? Way back
when I took
>layout and typography (many moons ago) the research indicated
that
>fully-justified text created awkward gaps (even with
proportional printers)
>in
>the text and therefore slowed the reader's pace and
comprehension.
>
>I hate fully-justified text produced by most printers.
However, if you're
>talking about a truly typeset book, with variable kerning and
compression/
>expansion that eliminates awkward gaps I might find this easier
to believe.
>
>Please send your results to the list. It'll be interesting to
hear what the
>current status is--and what kind of fully-justified text they
mean.
>
>Jill Burgchardt
>


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