> LaTeX also has a much superior word-break/hyphening algorithm to the HTML engines of browsers.
And because the PDF has a fixed layout it's also much easier to prevent "rivers" in paragraphs. Which hence makes it a no-brainer to use justification. To me many print publication using justified text (including LaTeX documents) are a thing of beauty and I do hate how "left align" breaks the flow of reading. I'm taking slightly different spacing between words due to justification every day over horizontal lines of different length, which I find fugly and confusing beyond repair.
More hyphenation controls are coming to CSS and, one can dream, it may be possible one day to programatically detect rivers?
Meanwhile rivers be damned, I override anyway many sites and add "text-align: justify". The nice thing is: because "text-align: left" is the default many sites and minifiers do not bother with text-align at all, so adding "text-align: justify" works for many, many, many sites.
And I only half-buy anyway the justifications (ah!) for left alignment on the Web.
It's basically saying: "We know better than people who've been working in print since decades (or more), left align is easier to read". I don't buy it. Left align breaks my reading flow. And I cannot be the only one.
To me left align is trading potentially ugly looking paragraphs (due to rivers) for certainly ugly looking paragraphs (due to left justification: just look at the right of each paragraph... Such lack of clarity, such chaos cannot be unseen. It's pure fail).
P.S: I've actually typeset books both in LaTeX and QuarkXPress and their were justified, not left-aligned.
> I override anyway many sites and add "text-align: justify".
I think you're an outlier in your strong preference for justified text but this serves as an example in favor of using HTML to present content. Well made web content is much more malleable by users to make it meet their needs and preferences.
And because the PDF has a fixed layout it's also much easier to prevent "rivers" in paragraphs. Which hence makes it a no-brainer to use justification. To me many print publication using justified text (including LaTeX documents) are a thing of beauty and I do hate how "left align" breaks the flow of reading. I'm taking slightly different spacing between words due to justification every day over horizontal lines of different length, which I find fugly and confusing beyond repair.
More hyphenation controls are coming to CSS and, one can dream, it may be possible one day to programatically detect rivers?
Meanwhile rivers be damned, I override anyway many sites and add "text-align: justify". The nice thing is: because "text-align: left" is the default many sites and minifiers do not bother with text-align at all, so adding "text-align: justify" works for many, many, many sites.
And I only half-buy anyway the justifications (ah!) for left alignment on the Web.
It's basically saying: "We know better than people who've been working in print since decades (or more), left align is easier to read". I don't buy it. Left align breaks my reading flow. And I cannot be the only one.
To me left align is trading potentially ugly looking paragraphs (due to rivers) for certainly ugly looking paragraphs (due to left justification: just look at the right of each paragraph... Such lack of clarity, such chaos cannot be unseen. It's pure fail).
P.S: I've actually typeset books both in LaTeX and QuarkXPress and their were justified, not left-aligned.