Justification (typesetting)

In typesetting, justification is the horizontal positioning of text or images, typically relative to a column. In English and most European languages where words are read left-to-right, text is often left-justified, meaning that the text of a paragraph is aligned on the left-hand side. This is the default style of text justification on the World Wide Web.

In other languages that read text right-to-left, such as Arabic and Hebrew, text is commonly right-justified. Additionally, right-justification is used to set off special text in English, such as attributions to authors of quotes printed in books and magazines, and is often used when formatting tables of data.

Additionally, text can be centered in the middle of a page with center justification. This is often used to clearly show the title of a work, and can be used when quoting poems and songs. However, quotations are also frequently indented. Like with right-justification, center-justified text is often used to present data in tables.

However, one of the most common types of justification in print media is full justification, where the spaces between letters and words are stretched in order to make the text align on both the left and right sides. However, this can be difficult to achieve properly, often requiring words to be broken into smaller parts with dashes if the text is fitting into a thin column (such as in newspapers).