[scribus] how does scribus do justification?

[John Culleton]

On Monday 25 January 2010 12:24:31 EilertO at aol.com wrote:
> I am using MSWord at this time and am not very happy with how it justifies
> lines (only uses spaces between words, no kerning) and even less happy with
> page bottom justification.   Does Scribus offer anything better?   Also,
> are Word docs importable transparently into Scribus?   I am not yet a user,
> just want to know what can be done.
>
> thanks,   Eilert
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Kerning between letters, also called letterspacing is not a good way to 
justify. One guru is famously quoted as saying "A man who would letterspace 
lower case would steal sheep." 

TeX and InDesign justify a paragraph at a time instead of a line at a time. 
This is the best justification. The famous MSWord gap toothed look is 
eliminated. TeX also optionally allows for tiny adjustment to letter widths 
which is much less noticeable than kerning.  TeX and InDesign also allow for 
optical alignment (also called hanging punctuation) where certain small 
characters are allowed to protrude into the margin thus giving the optical 
illusion of a more solid block of text. 

As I understand it optical alignment is available or will be available for 
some versions of Scribus.  For paragraph at a time justification you need 
either TeX or InDesign. I work in TeX for text-heavy books and Scribus for 
highly formatted pages such as covers or coffee table books. 

-- 
John Culleton
"Create Book Covers with Scribus"
Printable E-book 38 pages $5.95
http://www.booklocker.com/books/4055.html