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No Justification

Another day, another wonderful post from David St. Lawrence, over at Ripples. His series of posts chronicling his experiences in transforming from a writer into a self-publisher is must-read stuff for anyone involved in, or considering, writing a book. So here's a link to his archive page where the whole Self-Publishing series - 12 posts at last count - is collected (remember, it's a blog, so you may want to scroll down and start at the beginning, including the comments).

A comment I posted early in the series on the topic of justified margins has nagged at me and leads me to re-post it here, so I can offer graphics to illustrate my point. And that point is ... (drum roll) ... DON'T.

Don't use justified margins, I mean.

Here's what I wrote over at Ripples, broken up here with images from the books I used as examples:

I came across the comment from Michael Cleverly and your response about using "justified" text.

If it's not too late, I'd like to urge you to reconsider. Studies have shown that blocks of justified text are actually harder to read, because they result in odd spacing between words and excessive hyphenation by wordprocessing and page layout programs. The frequent wider spaces often line up from one line to another, producing distracting visual "rivers" of empty spaces winding down the page. It takes a lot of careful, manual adjustments of kerning and tracking to avoid these problems.

Take a look at some of the most beautiful, well-designed books produced in the last couple of decades:

Edward Tufte's series of books on information design (especially The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd ed. and Visual Explanations):

and Douglas Holleley's wonderful resource for self-publishing, Digital Book Design and Publishing.

All printed with left-justification, ragged-right.

All self-published, as well, by the way.

In an article with roots in my past life as an appellate lawyer, Painting With Print, Prof. Ruth Ann Robbins urges lawyers to avoid justified text under the sub-heading: "There isn't much justification for justified text."

Her article has been adopted and posted on the official website of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago, available at http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/Rules/Painting_with_Print.pdf. Check it out. She offers lots of useful typographic advice and research to back it up.

Not surprisingly, her article was printed in a scholarly journal ... left justified, ragged-right. The editors found it necessary to add a note, assuring their readers that Robbins' attack on tradition was her own fault, "rather than adhering to the page design and heading conventions of J.ALWD."

So there are opinions on both sides. I'll go with Robbins, and Tufte, and Holleley. But I won't hold your choice against you.

Since it's my soapbox, here are a couple more examples (note: these are information designers writing about how to get your message across):

Dynamics in Document Design, by Karen Schriver (Wiley 1997)

Information Design Desk Reference, by Christine Sevilla (Crisp 2002)

Now that you've seen my "evidence," what do you think?

Getting Ready to Print

Most people think of writing a book as sitting down and pounding out a manuscript, using the word processing program on their computer. Maybe they have in mind including a few photographs or other kinds of graphics (clip art, charts, tables, screen shots).

Getting that far is a lot of work, of course, but it still leaves the author a long way from a professionally printed book. Just how much important work remains became clear to me recently. I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Douglas Holleley at the Rochester Institute of Technology's "Getting Into Print" self-publishing fair.

Dr. Holleley's presentation on using your desktop computer, scanner, and printer to produce a book led me to his book, Digital Book Design and Publishing. In the Introduction, he reminds us of many of the tasks that go into making a book:

To make a book one adopts a series of roles that, in the not too distant past, were whole fields of specialized study. Consider for a moment the steps involved and the level of skill required at each stage.

When one makes images for the book, one is a photographer. When one writes the words that accompany the images, one is an author. When one places these words into an appropriate format, making decisions about type styles and typefaces, one is a typographer. When one commences to assemble all this material into a coherent package, one is both editor and graphic designer. One then proceeds to turn to the equivalent of a reprograhic camera operator, a platemaker, a printer ...

You get the point. Finishing the manuscript certainly is a major step. But several equally vital steps remain before you can hand over a disk, or upload the files, to a printer and expect a quality book to come back.

Fortunately, there is help. Holleley's book provides an enjoyable trip through the history and important concepts behind the typographic, page layout, and graphic design tasks that can now be performed with the help of powerful software, such as QuarkXPress or Adobe InDesign (for typography and page layout) and Photoshop (for image preparation). He then shows how anyone willing to learn these programs, who has access to a computer, a digital camera and/or scanner, and a printer can turn out a professional quality book.

I've read and used Holleley's book and found it extremely useful, despite the fact that he focuses on QuarkXPress loaded on a Mac and I use InDesign on a PC. It's a tribute to how well he explains the fundamentals that his tips and techniques translate easily to newer versions of the software on a different platform.

For those who want to write a book, but don't have the time or inclination to learn all the skills, or adopt all the roles, required to get the manuscript ready for printing, we suggest treating it in a business-like fashion: Staff your weaknesses. Hire a professional editor (this one is probably essential, regardless of your skills), a graphic designer, and a skilled page layout professional.

Or, connect with an author services company (like WME Books) who can create a customized package of services to handle only those tasks you don't want to do for yourself.

You don't have to do it all alone - a probably shouldn't.