Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hplabs!hp-ses!hpcc01!hpwrce!howeird
From: howeird@hpwrce.HP.COM (Howard Stateman)
Newsgroups: comp.text.desktop
Subject: Re: PageMaker (was Re: Typography--Was Re: ventura)
Message-ID: <7650012@hpwrce.HP.COM>
Date: 15 Jun 89 20:28:11 GMT
References: <30-May-89.095707@192.41.214.2>
Organization: Ye Olde Salt Mines
Lines: 41

alex@rata.vuw.ac.nz (Alex Heatley) writes:
>2. Justified type is harder to read than than ragged right.
>
 >Could someone cite a study giving this conclusion? All I've ever seen is
>arguments along the lines of less eye movement with ragged right vs
>arguments of constant eye speed with justified text. And when I look to
>the publishing world -- the books I read are justified, the newspapers I
>read are justified, many of the magazines I read are justified. To me this
>results in several possible conclusions:
I won't list his conclusions here.

In 1973, when I was layout editor of The Daily Astorian, Astoria, Oregon, 
we did a reader survey, based on one which was done a year or two earlier
by the AP, Washington Newspaper Publisher's Association and Oregon
Newspaper Publisher's Association. As a result of the survey, we
changed our typefaces and our column width. I never received a written
copy of the results, but my publisher read them to me so forcefully that
I will never forget them:

1. The preferred typefaces were ALL sans-serif. (we switched to bodoni)

2. The preferred justification was full justification (as opposed to
   hanging right) with no hyphenation below 6 characters. That is, if
   the word had 5 or less characters, don't hyphenate, wrap it to the next
   line.
3. The preferred column width was 18 picas. This really stuck in my mind,
   since it was an oddball number. At the time, our news columns were 10
   picas, our editorials were 24. 

We didn't widen our columns to 18, but we did go up to 12. We did make
our editorial columns 18, though. 

But as I have posted earlier, it's all in the eye of the beholder.

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|Howard Stateman, Hewlett-Packard Response Center, Mountain View, CA |
|howeird@hpwrce.HP.COM      or     hplabs!hpwrce!howeird             |
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