Explain in detail how to know when to justify text. Include in your answer definitions of the following terms: flush left, flush right, justify, loose line, type line, and river.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

When formatting paragraph text, you can choose to left-align, right-align, center, or justify it. When you left-align a paragraph, text appears flush left or straight along the left margin and has a ragged right edge, like the paragraphs in this book. In Photoshop, and in word-processing programs, text is left-justified by default. When you right-align text, it appears flush right along the right margin and has a ragged left edge. When you center text, both the left and right edges are ragged, and each line is centered, resulting in lines of different lengths. When you justify text, it is aligned flush along both the left and right margins. This gives your paragraphs neat, symmetrical margins, but it can introduce other problems, such as loose or tight lines. In a loose line, text is so spread out that it is distracting to the eye because of all the white space. White space flowing from line to line, called a river, can draw a reader’s attention away from the content. In a tight line, some words are so close together that they are difficult to distinguish. In general, justifying text in a narrow column results in a great number of loose lines and is, therefore, not advised. Photoshop and most word-processing programs provide tools that let you fix the tracking and kerning of loose lines to reduce the white space between words and characters in justified text, but making adjustments line by line can be very time-consuming. So when do you use justified text, and when do you use some other alignment option? In fact, there’s no simple answer. You need to determine your needs on a case-by-case basis. In general, justified text is considered formal, while unjustified text is less so. Other considerations are column width and page design. For example, how do the graphics on the page look next to justified or unjustified text? As you become more experienced working with text, you’ll develop a sense of what works best in a given situation. You’ll also need to weigh other factors, such as the time it takes to adjust tracking, kerning, and hyphenation in a particular design. Once you have weighed all of these factors, you’ll have the information you need to make the right decision for a given project.