RE: Justified versus ragged right

[Fred Ridder <docudoc -at- hotmail -dot- com>]

David Downing wrote:
 
> Seems as of every time this question comes up, everyone is unanimous in
> preferring ragged right for all the reasons that have been given, which
> prompts me to ask two questions:
 
You've misinterpreted or misunderstood the responses. The preference
that was stated was for ragged right vs. the crude kind of justification
implemented by desktop word processing tools. Achieving justification
by adjusting only the spaces between words is aesthetically displeasing,
causes white "rivers" in the text, and degrades readability.  
 
> First, is there, in fact, any argument to defend justified text, other
> than the fact that it makes for a nice, neat block on the page?
There is nothing wrong with *well done* justification. But no desktop
application (with the possible exception of InDesign) has a sophisticated
enough typographic engine to do a good job of justification. 
 
> Second, how did justified text get to be the standard for published
> books?
 
Because there's nothing wrong with it *if it's done well* and it looks 
good. Book publishers can afford to spend the kind of money that 
a professional H&J (hyphenation and justification) tool costs because
the cost is spread across a large number of revenue-generating 
deliverables. And for the same reason, they can afford to employ 
operators who really understand the H&J process and the tradeoffs 
involved so that they can achieve good looking results. A dumb
justification tool in inexperienced hands produces ugly results.
 
-Fred Ridder
 
 
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