[Sigia-l] text justification

[Pabini Gabriel-Petit]

Tom Trottier said:

> While left justification is easier to read for paragraphs, I suggest
> centre-justifying text words or phrases in the middle of tables. This
> maintains the tablular nature and consistency separation from the
> columns to left and right.

This use of centering will make the text harder to read. It's better to use
padding to achieve separation in tables, keeping the text left aligned.

> I would also tend towards left justification for the right-most column,
> and right justification for the left-most column if it's a single word
> or very short phrase.

While this works well for labels in forms--to ensure that a label is
sufficiently close to a text box, for instance, for easy readability when
there are labels of various lengths--there's no justification for doing this
in most cases. ;-)

> Columns of a relatively constant width like numbers are best put on the
> left or in the middle of a table, right justified, or perhaps centred
> for integers or phone numbers.

The appropriate alignment for columns of numeric data depends on the type of
data. For numeric strings that always consist of the same number of
characters--like U.S. phone numbers--it's generally best to align on the
left. Though centering sometimes works well for numbers comprising the same
number of digits--for example, hexademical numbers for colors. When you
center the data, you should center the heading, too. It's best to
right-align columns of monetary values--to ensure that decimal points
align--times--to keep the colons aligned--and columns of ascending numbers
that progressively comprise more digits.

Hope this helps to clarify things.

Pabini
________________________________________

Pabini Gabriel-Petit
Principal & User Experience Architect
Spirit Softworks
www.spiritsoftworks.com