Type and Design Tips for self- and small publishers POST #4

Let’s start with hyphenation today.

USE HYPHENATION: DON’T AVOID IT
I see a lot of small press books where they try to solve the problem of a word processor’s hyphenation mistakes by just turning off hyphenation completely. Please do not do this. Remember you have justified the text on your Body Text Pages (right?). Allowing no hyphenation forces the software to make too much space between some words and can lead to what’s known as the River of White. The River of White is BAD. It’s like you can see white cracks in the page there’s so much space between the words. The River of White is not only kind of ugly, it disturbs readability. (I read recently a blog post from a dyslexic woman who said rivers on the page make it impossible for her to even read a page. Her eye keeps getting drawn away from the words.)

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