Do Not Justify

I believe it is an effort to appear more professional in appearance, but I am not sure. If you search for the word “justify” on the Internet, you will find a thousand pages of webmasters trying to figure out how to do it. It’s easy, you just set your alignment to equal justify.

Sample Code: <p align=”justify”>paragraph</p>

Now That You Know How, STOP IT!

You should justify text when using it in block quotes, particularly long quotes. This is the best, most clearly defined use of the justify setting. I am being a little vague on this because I admit, I am not a member of MLA, Modern Language Association, and I cannot find my book to give you the exact details. To slam-dunk this idea though, I want to give you another reason why you should avoid it. Computers mess it up.

Computers Can’t Justify

Yes, they can, but not like people can. Using justify on the web can produce even worse effects than most document applications. The spacing quality is often poor, and can lead to huge gaps if there are several small words on the line. Another more important issue is that visitors use those text alignments to help understand the site design.

If you were to look at 100 web pages today, you would most likely see main menus on the top, left, and center. You can even find some sites with menus on all three spaces. Most web surfers are used to this, and with a quick glance, they should be able to understand where to start. Aligning your text to the one margin only, will help give them an indication on where to start. I would suggest the left please. Aligning text on just one side will also eliminate the extra spaces that occur between the words giving you a real professional appearance. Then, when it comes time to quote someone else’s content, it will all be clearly justified.