Better justify a text or measure the space between justified words

fmg 0

Hello,

Please, the problem is well known: too much space between words in a justified paragraph on lines where the following word is not divisible/divided.

"Conventional" solutions:

automatic word division
"WordPerfect justification"
modification of character spacing, possibly using a Macro

The first two solutions are insufficient, the last too laborious for long texts. But, despite my fruitless searches, I can't bring myself to accept that Word can't justify text better. The existence of WordPerfect mode proves that Word is capable of using other algorithms to justify text.

Isn't there a way (direct or indirect) to measure the apparent spaces between words in text justified in Word? It would be "enough" to be able to measure the width of words (or characters - but I don't know if/how this can be used in VBA) to deduce the spaces between words on a line. With this measurement, a loop could easily alleviate the problem of "ugly" lines by condensing the letter spacing or at least underlining these lines. I'm not a great enough connoisseur, but with all the APIs, VBA, JS-Office, Python... is it really impossible?

A question like this (How to measure spaces between justified words in Word by VBA?) was not answered to expectations.

Thank you in advance for any constructive replies, and have a nice day.

Viorel 118.5K Reputation points

2023-07-11T16:52:46.6466667+00:00

Maybe Word and Publisher are not designed to be sophisticated.

3 answers

John Korchok 5,446 Reputation points

2023-07-11T16:22:05.6866667+00:00

Program features can only be over-ridden when the app is programmed to enable that. Microsoft has not done that with text spacing. The answer in your link reflects the reality of justification spacing in Word, even if that doesn't meet your expectations. Please follow Stefan's advice and send feedback to Microsoft.
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2 people found this answer helpful.
fmg 0 Reputation points

2023-07-12T08:47:59.9566667+00:00

Thank you, John, for your persevering help. I wasn't trying to change the justification algorithm, but to improve it by changing the letter spacing. Word lets you do this manually, I was trying to automate it.

Without being able to change the causes, I wanted to improve the effects by measuring the apparent spaces. It's true that it's not a very clean process... Thanks again for your time.

Stefan Blom 2,381 Reputation points MVP

2023-07-12T09:36:49.05+00:00

Without being able to change the causes, I wanted to improve the effects by measuring the apparent spaces.

fmg,

I vaguely recall that someone did suggest a macro years ago, to get help with "tweaking" the character spacing, but unfortunately I don't remember the details.

fmg 0 Reputation points

2023-07-12T13:57:07.08+00:00

Thank you, Stefan. I've already searched for (too) long without finding anything. Now there's something more important to do...

In abandoning this problem, a solution suddenly comes to mind: it would be possible, for a given font, to manually measure the advance width of the character (proportionally to the font size and separately for normal, italic and bold) and enter the result in a constant field. Then it would be easy to loop through each line, add up the character widths, subtract this sum from the line width and divide the result by the number of spaces between words. The result would be (very hypothetically!) the width of the spaces on a line. Depending on another predefined constant and in proportion to the height of the font used, we'd know whether the line was too wide (and therefore ugly) or not.

But you'd have to be a bit crazy to do that :) But if anyone feels like it, I'm willing to give it a try!

If not, I'd at least invite passers-by to kindly vote for this suggestion.

PS: Wouldn't it be possible to know the character advance width automatically, from the font file?
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Stefan Blom 2,381 Reputation points MVP

2023-07-11T09:40:02.0866667+00:00

The compatibility option that refers to WordPerfect justification has been removed in recent versions of Word, because it should no longer be needed. However, you are not alone in noticing that there are still some limitations to the full justify option in Word. One thing you can do is to send feedback to Microsoft using the feedback facility in Word.
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fmg 0 Reputation points

2023-07-11T13:25:30.8766667+00:00

Thank you for your reply. I have already suggested this improvement, with no illusions about the effect... Would you like to support it?

In compatibility mode, WordPerfect mode still exists, and there's a big difference between this method and the native one in Word. However, the solution is still unsatisfactory.

Stefan Blom 2,381 Reputation points MVP

2023-07-11T14:45:40.89+00:00

I have voted for your suggestion.

fmg 0 Reputation points

2023-07-12T08:01:36.1766667+00:00

Thank you, Stefan!
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Trichromic Updates 5 Reputation points

2023-08-18T11:11:58.9833333+00:00

This is a pretty basic function and without it my comms look like they have been written by a 12 year old.

Microsoft have loaded so much functionality into Dynamics (which is good, I guess), but have missed some crucial tools and sacrificed simplicity.

Can I have my money back?
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Stefan Blom 2,381 Reputation points MVP

2023-08-18T14:27:33.8066667+00:00

This is a pretty basic function and without it my comms look like they have been written by a 12 year old. Microsoft have loaded so much functionality into Dynamics (which is good, I guess), but have missed some crucial tools and sacrificed simplicity. Can I have my money back?

@Trichromic Updates

In Word, the result will often be better if you choose not to justify the text. Full justification is far from perfect, even if you choose to hyphenate the text.

If you have purchased a subscription, you can cancel it. See https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/cancel-a-microsoft-365-subscription-46e2634c-c64b-4c65-94b9-2cc9c960e91b (applies to consumer subscriptions).

John Korchok 5,446 Reputation points

2023-08-18T20:59:59.66+00:00

Justified text is less readable than left-aligned text. I never use it unless a client insists on it.

https://ruitina.com/dont-justify-text-on-websites-and-apps/

fmg 0 Reputation points

2023-11-28T14:47:31.4+00:00

Justified text is less readable than left-aligned text. I never use it unless a client insists on it.

@John Korchok But we're talking about printed texts, not digital ones. That is - or was - the primary purpose of Word. Or am I mistaken?

It's a shame to have to buy another piece of software to present texts properly.
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Better justify a text or measure the space between justified words

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