Re: Using ragged right in technical publications

["Parks, Beverly" <ParksB -at- EMH1 -dot- HQISEC -dot- ARMY -dot- MIL>]

Well, the study Beth told us about may sound a little hokey, but the
basic premise is the same in other things that I have read. Roger C.
Parker and I think Robin Williams both say in their books on DTP that
ragged right is easier to read than justified text. The reason that I
remember is that the eyes have a harder time following the lines as they
scan back and forth while reading justified text. The mix of longer and
shorter lines in ragged right text makes the lines somewhat individually
distinguishable and thus you are less likely to lose your place or grow
fatigued while reading.

As line length grows and font size stays the same (so you are putting
more and more words on a line), the benefits of ragged right diminish
somewhat. Also, for very short lines, like in newspaper columns, there
is little difference between justified and ragged, except that white
space becomes a problem (when using full justification).

As someone else said, the rivers of white space issue is becoming less
and less a problem as font handling technology improves.

Bev Parks
parksb -at- emh1 -dot- hqisec -dot- army -dot- mil
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