Belief systems in typography

 

The community of computer users is famous for its debate about the pros and cons of software, programming languages and operating systems. A less researched area for creating opposite oppinions is digital typography which is equal to the LaTeX software. The problem with typography is that the domain is very complex and it is difficult to find a single discussion topic which will polarize the opinion of the users.

A highly visible conflict is between the LaTeX community and non latex users. The LaTeX community understands themself as experts for typography and critizes heavily the alternative software which is MS-Word and indesign. MS Word can't be used for creating professional documents and indesign is only a WYSIWYG software which means that lots of mouse clicks are needed before the document was created. If a user has decided for the LaTeX software he will create as default high quality documents, this is at least the assumption.

There is a need to analyze the art of typography in detail to understand that the same software can be used right and wrong. Typography consists of many sub problems, like micro typography, macro typography, fonts, bibliography, creation of tables and so on. The question is which sort of setting is recommended? Is a document which was typeset in a 10pt font easier to read than a document which was typeset in a 11pt font? Not always, it depends on individual preferences. Therefor there is no conflict about this issue. The same non conflict is available about the margin space. In reality, documents are created which have a small margin and a big margin as well.

But there is one problem not discussed frequently which has the potential to divide the community. It is the problem of flush left paragraph vs justified paragraph. From a technical perspective this problem is easy to master. Every word processor has the ability to format a text in both style. In MS-Word there is button available to change the formatting and LaTeX knows the regged2d package for doing so. After applying the command, the paragraph will either have a straight right edge or it will be formatted in flush left.

The reason why this formatting style has a high conflict potential is because in the world of professional publishing there is a clear dogmatic rule available that only justified text is allowed. This rule is formulated in the guidelines for submitting documents to a conference proceeding and it is visible in existing documents. That means, everybody, which means really everybody is following this rule in theory and practice.

Let us make a short survey to analyze the current situation. We are taking a look into randomly selected books, newspapers, conference proceedings and academic journals. And we are enlarging the time period from the year 2010 to 1960s, and even to 1900. The surprising discovery is that all the documents were typeset with fully-justified formatting. Calling this perception a typographic rule is an understatement it has more in common with a dogma.

The reason why is hard to investigate. An often formulated argument is that a justified text looks more elegant. Another less mentioned reason is that otherwise the mechanical printing press will explode because of the imbalance of the right edge. That means professional typographers can be highly irrational in this point. The printing press is rotating very fast, and if the right edge is creating zig zag pattern, the rotating process is disturbed.

Nevertheless the dominant reason why fully justified text is prefered for professional publications like newspapers and journals is because of historical reasons. Since 200 years and longer, all the journals were typeset in this style. The font has changed, the font size can be adjusted and the image quality differs but every text was typeset in the fully justified mode.. This formatting style is so common that it is often identified with typography in general. That means, a fully justified text is equal to good typography and a flush left is equal to its absence.

Perhaps it should be mentioned that in the digital world the situation is the other way around. Most HTML pages are using the flush left rendering. From a technical perspective, a HTML page has no page width but the window's size can be adapted. And nobody has complained about it.