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In typesetting, justification is the setting of text or images within a column or "measure" to align along both the left and right margin. Text that is set into equal length lines and aligned along both the left and right margins is said to be "justified".
The following paragraph is justified.
In justified text the spaces between words, and to a lesser extent between glyphs or letters, are stretched or sometimes compressed in order to make the text align on both the left and right sides. When using justification it is customary to treat the last line of a paragraph separately by simply left or right aligning it, depending on the language direction. A line in which the spaces have been stretched beyond their normal width are called loose lines, while those whose spaces have been compressed are called tight lines. Justification and alignment are not synonyms. The mistaken impression that they are is due to an error made in the menu structure of the popular word processor Microsoft Word, which places "Left", "Right", "Full" and "Centered" as choices beneath the menu item "Justification." Typographers, typesetters and graphic designers know this to be incorrect. "Justification" refers only to a setting of type aligned on both the left and right margins. Therefore the compounds "left/right/center/full-justified" are all incorrect or redundant. Correctly speaking there are four possible typographic alignments, or "settings":
- Centered
- Flush left (more verbosely "flush left, ragged right")
- Flush right (more verbosely "flush right, ragged left")
- Justified
Justification can sometimes lead to typographical anomalies. When the spaces between words line up approximately above one another on several loose lines, a distracting visual pattern called a river may appear. Another problem especially prevalent when using justification in narrow columns, such as in many newspapers, is when an exceptionally large space appears between two words (called a loose line). These may often be solved through the use of hyphenation or by rewriting the text to use smaller words.
History
Justification has been the preferred setting of type in many western languages through the history of the written word. Its use has only waned somewhat since the middle of the 20th century through the advocacy of the typographer Jan Tschichold's book Asymmetric Typography and the more free treatment of typography of the Bauhaus, Dada, and Russian constructivist movements.
In traditional typography, not all "flush left" settings were created equal. In flush-left text, words are separated on a line by the minimum word spacing. Sophisticated typesetting systems made an effort to reduce the jaggedness of the right-hand side by distributing some of the white space at the end of the line between the words to give a more even effect. This feature was available in traditional dedicated typesetting systems but is conspicuously absent from most if not all desktop publishing systems. Graphic designers and typesetters on these newer desktop systems have had to adjust word and letter spacing, or "tracking", on a manual line-by-line basis to achieve the same effect.
When a monospaced font is used, there is a way to justify text without inserting
extra spaces. Careful word choice allows the author to write with exactly eighty
characters per line, creating a visual effect of justification. Since many words
in English mean the same thing but are different lengths, it is just a matter of
trial and error to find the proper line length. For extra points, you should end
the last line after eighty characters as well, creating an invincible paragraph.
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