style guide
Aligning Text
Alignment of text within margins has much more of an effect on a readers perception than you may think. A block of text can be made to stand out by its contrasting alignment and varying margins.
Margins
Margins, and indeed all white space, help establish a sites style and feel. If you want a airy, free feel, than large margins may be appropriate. They seperate your text from other important features of the site such as navigation, and even from the interface of the browser itself. Smaller margins may make a page look like everything is a little crammed in, and give a tight, enclosed feel.
Margins should be used consistently to give a site a consistent structure and feel. Changing margins can often have a surprisingly large effect on the overall look and feel of a site.
Blocks of text can be aligned within their margins in several different styles.
Justified Text
Justified text is set flush with left and right margins. This means that every line in the text block is the same length. The effect is created by spacing out, and squashing up words to fit into the specific line length. Longer words may be hyphenated if there is no suitable place for a line break.
Justified text is nearly always used in magazines and newspapers, and gives a blocky, organised feel to a page. However, justified text on the web often suffers from poor browser rendering. Browsers have no means of hyphenating words, so all too often the display becomes a mess of large white spaces between words. It is not recommended for use on the web.
Right Aligned
Right aligning can be a useful technique for emphasizing a small passage of text, or for removing it from the main body of prose. It should not be used for long passages as the ‘ragged’ edges on the left side of the text make it difficult to read. The eye has trouble finding the beginning of each line.
Left Aligned
Left aligned text is the most appropriate and legible option for the web. The ‘ragged’ right edge makes no difference to the legibility, and it is the style of text that users are most likely to expect, and be comfortable reading.
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