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Fully justified margins
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Question:
A colleague told me that if I use fully justified margins, my documents will look neater. Is this a good idea?
Answer:
Not usually.
On the one hand, fully justified margins are neater because both the right and left margins are straight, without any indentation. For example, the text below is fully justified:
Most people think of a verb as an action word. That is partly true: most verbs express action. But some do not. There are three types of verbs: action, linking and helping.
Knowing these three types of verbs is a very valuable skill, because you need a verb to write a sentence. Indeed, every complete sentence contains a verb.
This format is useful for text laid out in columns, as in newspapers and magazines—the uniform space between straight columns is pleasing to the eye. On the other hand, full justification has a disadvantage, as you can see from the example: some lines have to be stretched out to meet the right margin, so that uneven spaces appear between words.
However, with left-justified margins (like those used in this article), the even spacing between words makes the text easier to read. Also, the ragged right margin creates white space that can make the text look less dense, less rigid and more inviting.
Therefore, we highly recommend that you use left-justified margins for most documents.
