I've heard a phrase about opinions, but it is too impolite to repeat here.
Anyway...
On Fri, Feb 27, 2026 at 12:24 (+0100), Henning Hraban Ramm wrote:
> Am 27.02.26 um 11:09 schrieb Mikael Sundqvist:
>> Hi all,
>> Hans and I are exploring some new alignment features, in particular
>> ragged right. One of the problems is to get a "nice rag". Attached is
>> a sample with three different settings for various hsizes. The quote
>> comes from a Twain book, and is in German, since that might be more
>> challenging.
>> So, please, which one, if any, look in general better, and, more
>> importantly, why?
>> The prize you might get is a new keyword to align.
> Thank you for looking into this. Very nice choice of text!
> Good “Flattersatz” (ragged setting) in opposite to “Rauhsatz” (unjustified
> setting) should avoid hyphenation and should have a good rhythm, i.e.
> alternation of longer and shorter lines, the “Flatterzone” (ragged width,
> underfull tolerance) can be quite big.
> Under these criteria, none of the samples is good, all have too many
> hyphenations, and in “bad” places (not only at composite word boundaries).
> While the hyphenation differs, none of the examples avoids “bad”
> hyphenations.
> All have rivers with the quotation marks.
> The short lines could be even shorter, otherwise the rhythm of all three
> examples is acceptable. I miss protrusion.
I find the rivers in the middle and rightmost column to be horribly
jarring. The leftmost column is bad, but (IMHO) considerably less bad.
> I can’t decide which example I like best – all three have their “moments” in
> some areas.
(FWIW) I have the same feeling. For reasons I can't articulate I have a
very mild overall preference for the first column. But is that only
because the river is less bad? I don't know.
Having said that, I think you erred by showing the three choices in
different colours, because different colours might affect how these are
viewed and preferred. Do I prefer the first column because of its colour
for some strange reason? I can't say.
Jim
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