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277 points todsacerdoti | 1 comments | | HN request time: 1.27s | source
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mrandish ◴[] No.45146308[source]
I really like the content but the text blocks being justified makes it more difficult to read than it needs to be.
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FrostKiwi ◴[] No.45147341[source]
First time hearing this! I added a URL parameter `noJustify`, which removes text-justification. Eg. https://blog.frost.kiwi/dual-kawase/?noJustify

I'm not sure either way, would you say this makes it easier to read and I should make it the default?

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npteljes ◴[] No.45147471[source]
Justified, in general, looks neater, is more formal, but is a bit more harder to read as well. I personally have no issue with it either way, but to tell you the truth, from a quick check I could not find any website that uses justified text, not even the ones that I think are formal and professional. Reuters, APNews, Wikipedia, Wordpress, Medium, everything I checked is unjustified. So I think it's a conventional default, if nothing else.
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gyomu ◴[] No.45147688[source]
If you take a typography class, they will drill it into you that unjustified is the norm (and you will spend some time learning how to make pleasant rags), and that you need a VERY GOOD reason to make text justified.

How much of it is convention vs based in measurable outcomes is up for debate (maybe), but at least that’s where most every formally trained designer/visual artist in the west comes from.

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cubefox ◴[] No.45147883[source]
After the printing press, but before the Internet, justified text was actually the norm. Every book, newspaper and magazine had justified text. But after hundreds of years, text justification has finally fallen out of favor. We can only speculate about the reason.
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1. npteljes ◴[] No.45148290[source]
I looked at random, recent printed media around me, and it's all still justified.

On displays, readability works out differently, and that's why I speculate this has changed. For example, printed media uses serif fonts to aid readability, but on displays, sans-serif works better, especially on lower resolutions.