# Justification

> Source: https://www.infinitelibrary.ai/glossary/justification

Last updated: 2026-09-06
Category: Typesetting & layout
Also called: Justified text · Ragged right (contrast)

Justification aligns text to both margins by varying the spaces between words; ragged-right (left-aligned) text keeps the word spaces even instead.

## Definition

**Justification** is the setting of text so that every full line is exactly the same length, giving the text block straight edges on both sides. The line lengths are equalised by stretching or shrinking the **word spaces** — and, in careful work, by hair-thin adjustments to letter spacing and glyph widths. Almost all printed books are justified; it is the look readers associate with a book rather than a document.

The alternative is **ragged right** (flush left), where word spaces stay uniform and the right edge varies. Ragged setting is standard for poetry, common in narrow columns and children's books, and easier to do well.

Justified text lives or dies by **hyphenation**: without the option to break words, a narrow measure produces lines with gaping spaces that connect into visible **rivers** of white running down the page. That is why typesetting engines treat justification and hyphenation as one problem — TeX famously optimises a whole paragraph at once.

## In Bindery

Bindery typesets in LaTeX, whose paragraph builder chooses justification and hyphenation together across the whole paragraph — the Knuth–Plass line-breaking algorithm.

## Related

- [Hyphenation](https://www.infinitelibrary.ai/glossary/hyphenation)
- [Typesetting](https://www.infinitelibrary.ai/glossary/typesetting)
- [LaTeX](https://www.infinitelibrary.ai/glossary/latex)
- [Widows and orphans](https://www.infinitelibrary.ai/glossary/widows-and-orphans)
- [Turn a Word Document Into a Printed Book](https://www.infinitelibrary.ai/tools/word-document-to-printed-book)
- [Turn Your Thesis Into a Book](https://www.infinitelibrary.ai/tools/thesis-to-book)
- [Book Publishing Glossary — 59 Terms Defined](https://www.infinitelibrary.ai/glossary)
- [Bindery — the Claude-powered book studio](https://www.infinitelibrary.ai/bindery)

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