I know what you might be thinking, “I hate hyphenation!” Well, bad luck. The most effective way to eliminate rivers is to use hyphenation. Therefore, wider paragraphs will contain less rivers, but you don’t want to go too wide as your reader will lose their place within the paragraph and end up reading the same line twice-I bet this has happened to you a few times! Left and Middle: Justified alignment can cause unsightly gaps within a paragraph called rivers. Generally, the narrower the paragraph the more rivers will appear. Rivers can be minimised in a number of ways. With justified text, word spacing is uneven from line to line. Not only are these unsightly, they hinder readability. Furthermore, when these gaps appear over multiple lines we get what is described as “white rivers” running through the entire paragraph. When a line within a paragraph contains a number of large words, gaps of white space can appear.
However, to create the straight edges on each side of the paragraph requires the words to be unevenly spaced and this is where the main issue lies.
This alignment gives the paragraph a formal appearance and the text tends to run shorter (the text takes up less room) than the other alignments-hence its popularity in magazines and newspapers. Justified alignment is a very popular choice as many people prefer the neat, straight edge appearance on both sides of the paragraph. When deciding on which alignment to use many factors need to be considered to ensure optimal readability. Whilst each of these alignments can be achieved in a page layout application with a click of a button or on the web using a straightforward styling rule, the benefits and pitfalls of each are not so simple. There are four main ways to align a paragraph including Flush Left, Flush Right, Justified and Centred.
While on the surface it may appear that this topic is relatively straightforward, each alignment has its own nuances that contribute to the overall appearance and readability of the design piece.įeatured Image: Full Stop by Sidney Lim YX licensed under CC BY-NC 3.0 Paragraph Alignment Share In this month’s typography tutorial we take a look at paragraph alignment.