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From: laura@l5.uucp (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.internat
Subject: Re: why hyphenate
Message-ID: <284@l5.uucp>
Date: Mon, 25-Nov-85 14:54:45 EST
Article-I.D.: l5.284
Posted: Mon Nov 25 14:54:45 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Nov-85 05:31:11 EST
References: <501@harvard.ARPA> <795@mmintl.UUCP> <3353@brl-tgr.ARPA> <2539@sunybcs.UUCP>
Reply-To: laura@l5.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Distribution: net
Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco
Lines: 28

In article <2539@sunybcs.UUCP> colonel@sunybcs.UUCP (Col. G. L. Sicherman) writes:
>Right margins are justified to make the text
>easier to read, and centuries of experience have vindicated the practice.

Every single print shop I have ever been in or worked for has had several
raging arguments which appear to date back to Geutenburg. (Well perhaps
not that far, but for decades at least.)  One of them is
``does hyphenation make text easier to read -- when does it -- when
doesn't it''.  It is one of the publishing equivalents to ``is it
possible to prove the literal truth of the Bible'' and ``what is the
perfect paging algorithm''.

A significant number of people find right justified text easier to read.
A significant number of people find right justified text harder to read.
A significant number of people find helvetica easier to read then roman.
A significant number of people find roman easer to read than helvetica.
A significant number of people find that *whatever is the font of their
local newspaper* is the easiest to read.  It is a strange business.

It is possible to make all sorts of logical arguments for why one font (say
roman) is easier to read than another (say helvetica).  While these are great
things for people who are designing fornts to rememeber, there always seems
to be a significant number of people who behave quite oppositely to what you
would expect.
-- 
Laura Creighton		
sun!l5!laura		(that is ell-five, not fifteen)
l5!laura@lll-crg.arpa