Re: [css-text] Re: Follow-up on Balance Text Proposal

You’re looking at a single paragraph example there.  When you have long body copy with dozens/hundreds of paragraphs, you don’t want balanced lines throughout, that really looks bad and ends up being confusing reading and you might end up losing your place in the text.  

It’s better to indicate distinct paragraphs with some spaces at the end. (but not too much space so that there’s a single character or two in the last line, which is also an unoptimal situation.)

-bobby
---
Bobby Mozumder
Editor-in-Chief
FutureClaw Magazine
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On Oct 13, 2014, at 11:44 AM, Zack Weinberg <zackw@panix.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 9:12 AM, Bobby Mozumder <mozumder@futureclaw.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> I'm also concerned that this is a "yes, fix this bug" switch.  Under
>>> what circumstances would one NOT want a headline, a section heading,
>>> or indeed an entire paragraph to be wrapped such that all lines are of
>>> similar length?  Wouldn't it be better to encourage browsers to
>>> implement better algorithms *which are on by default*?
>> 
>> A good intro on where you would/wouldn’t use each:
>> http://indesignsecrets.com/when-to-use-balance-ragged-lines.php
> 
> I'm not a designer, but? The example presented of "worse with balance
> on" looks better to me with balance on.
> 
> Still, I wouldn't be opposed to a specification along the lines of
> 
>    text-wrap: normal
> 
>        Default behavior: break lines as typically appropriate for
>        body copy.  There is no constraint on the number of words
>        on the last line of each paragraph.
> 
>    text-wrap: balance-lines
> 
>        As 'normal', but make the last line of each paragraph of
>        similar length to the others.  This is often the desired
>        behavior for headings, pull quotes, and centered text.
> 
> which I think captures the desired destinction, but says nothing that
> would require the use of a specific algorithm for either mode.
> 
> zw