Who’s right and justified?

Since you were so useful in answering my question about which font to use in a professional document (in a creative field), here’s another issue I’m dealing with: I heard that fully-justified text might be out of style and can make for bad page layout. What’s your take on this debate?

This article claims that there is no right or wrong when it comes to page layout and that it all depends on the type of document. The technical and marketing writer in my house believes that full-justification creates too much white space through the lines and makes the text hard to read.

I should precise that the document I’m working on will be published with MS Word and printed (vs read on a computer screen). Also, the 50 pages guideline we received from the tv broadcaster – whose call for entries we are answering – is fully-justified, and I believe that this is what my boss will want to go for as well. Most people think fully-justified looks more pro. This guy’s take on the issue is interesting:

In other words, the reason that some people, including your boss, prefer full-justification has little to do with aesthetics. In most cases, the reason for the preference is technical: until the emergence of the personal computer, any attempt at full justification was next to impossible for the average person. As a result, when word processors made full justification a possibility, many people jumped at the chance to use it on the grounds that it looked more sophisticated.

Among typographers, however, the general consensus is that, with a tool like MS Word, you’re better off with left-justified text. Do a search, and you should have no problem finding dozens of expert opinions to back up this contention.

Still, I’m curious to know if there’s a trend about this right now in the oh so hip world of desktop publishing.

Web brain

You have this pounding headache, the kind that pills won’t cure, and you take a quick break from your writing of a tv show proposal by having a look at a couple of links on your blogroll (yeah, you still don’t use an RSS feed reader, you’re lazy and old-fashioned in that way). You read the comments on a post about modern designs, you decide to check out what this DWR catalog is all about (how could you have missed it? It’s based in San Francisco), and then you realize (though you kind of knew it could only be) that the very inexpensive reading chair and ottoman you recently purchased is a rip-off of the City Armchair. You read more about the fauteuil and then find this: … the City Armchair and Ottoman capture classic drawing room elegance with rich leather upholstery and exceptional craftsmanship.

You think: ah, the famous drawing room. You had noticed that the term « drawing room » came up often in non-contemporary novels you read, and that you had developed a specific fascination for the drawing room in Rebecca (which you were recently surprised to see in a best-seller section at Indigo, or maybe the Big Read top 21 section). And then you wonder: what the hell is a drawing room exactly? You have vague ideas of a personal space, sort of the feminine equivalent of the « study » for a man, and you know that the term makes you dream, that the idea of a house with a drawing room is something of a myth, unreachable. And yet now you’ve got this cool reading chair and a decent house (you had always wanted a reading chair), and that headache is making you dizzy, kind of like the Web does sometimes, and boy are you ever going to get rid of that headache ’cause you can’t seem to quiet down that mind of yours, clicking and clicking and pounding one more thought, one more link, too many interesting things to do and learn about in a lifetime and you’ve got a bad case of the Web brain.

You better get back to writing or else who’s going to pay for that drawing room you want? And what’s a drawing room anyway?