quick guidelines HERE IS A GENERAL GUIDELINE FOR DETERMINING IF YOUR LINE LENGTH IS LONG ENOUGH TO SATISFACTORILY JUSTIFY THE TEXT: THE LINE LENGTH IN PICAS SHOULD BE ABOUT TWICE THE POINT SIZE OF THE TYPE:
THERE ARE 6 PICAS PER INCH. TO DETERMINE HOW
formula: point size x 2 / 6
LONG A LINE IS IN INCHES, DIVIDE THE NUMBER OF PICAS BY 6. THE RULERS IN MOST PROGRAMS CAN BE CHANGED TO PICAS.
examples: 9 pt type = 18 pica line = 3 inches 12 pt type = 24 pica line = 4 inches 18 pt type = 36 pica line = 6 inches
WHEN YOUR WORK COMES out of the printer, turn it upside down and squint at it. The rivers will be very easy to spot. Get rid of them. Try squinting at the example on the bottom of the previous page. Justified text was the style for many years-we grew up on it. But there has been a great deal of research done on readability and it shoes that those disruptive, inconsistent gaps between the words inhibit the flow of reading. Besides, they look dumb. Keep your eyes open as you look at professionally printed work (magazines, newsletters, annual reports, journals) and you’ll find there’s a very strong trend to align type on the left and leave the right ragged.
045
JUSTIFICATION