[NTG-context] Opinions wanted

[NTG-context] Opinions wanted

[Mikael Sundqvist]

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Hi all,

Hans and I are exploring some new alignment features, in particular
ragged right. One of the problems is to get a "nice rag". Attached is
a sample with three different settings for various hsizes. The quote
comes from a Twain book, and is in German, since that might be more
challenging.

So, please, which one, if any, look in general better, and, more
importantly, why?

The prize you might get is a new keyword to align.

/Hans and Mikael

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[NTG-context] Re: Opinions wanted

[Henning Hraban Ramm]

Am 27.02.26 um 11:09 schrieb Mikael Sundqvist:
> Hi all,
> 
> Hans and I are exploring some new alignment features, in particular
> ragged right. One of the problems is to get a "nice rag". Attached is
> a sample with three different settings for various hsizes. The quote
> comes from a Twain book, and is in German, since that might be more
> challenging.
> 
> So, please, which one, if any, look in general better, and, more
> importantly, why?
> 
> The prize you might get is a new keyword to align.

Thank you for looking into this. Very nice choice of text!

Good “Flattersatz” (ragged setting) in opposite to “Rauhsatz” 
(unjustified setting) should avoid hyphenation and should have a good 
rhythm, i.e. alternation of longer and shorter lines, the “Flatterzone” 
(ragged width, underfull tolerance) can be quite big.

Under these criteria, none of the samples is good, all have too many 
hyphenations, and in “bad” places (not only at composite word 
boundaries). While the hyphenation differs, none of the examples avoids 
“bad” hyphenations.
All have rivers with the quotation marks.
The short lines could be even shorter, otherwise the rhythm of all three 
examples is acceptable. I miss protrusion.

I can’t decide which example I like best – all three have their 
“moments” in some areas.

Hraban
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[NTG-context] Re: Opinions wanted

[Taco Hoekwater]

> On 27 Feb 2026, at 12:24, Henning Hraban Ramm <texml@fiee.net> wrote:
> 
> Am 27.02.26 um 11:09 schrieb Mikael Sundqvist:
>> Hi all,
>> Hans and I are exploring some new alignment features, in particular
>> ragged right. One of the problems is to get a "nice rag". Attached is
>> a sample with three different settings for various hsizes. The quote
>> comes from a Twain book, and is in German, since that might be more
>> challenging.
>> So, please, which one, if any, look in general better, and, more
>> importantly, why?
>> The prize you might get is a new keyword to align.
> 
> Thank you for looking into this. Very nice choice of text!
> 
> Good “Flattersatz” (ragged setting) in opposite to “Rauhsatz” (unjustified setting) should avoid hyphenation and should have a good rhythm, i.e. alternation of longer and shorter lines, the “Flatterzone” (ragged width, underfull tolerance) can be quite big.
> 
> Under these criteria, none of the samples is good, all have too many hyphenations, and in “bad” places (not only at composite word boundaries). While the hyphenation differs, none of the examples avoids “bad” hyphenations.
> All have rivers with the quotation marks.
> The short lines could be even shorter, otherwise the rhythm of all three examples is acceptable. I miss protrusion.
> 
> I can’t decide which example I like best – all three have their “moments” in some areas.

What Hraban said ;)

My additional two cents: 

1st cent: In my opinion the first and last full lines would ideally be shorter than the second and penultimate line. This is the rule for ragged right titles and should work equally well for full paragraphs. 
2nd cent: With ragged typesetting, a hyphenation on the final full line should be forbidden(“Pla-\break ckerei” is exceptionally bad)
3rd cent (bonus): If there is this much text, it would be not be hard to make sure the last (partial) line is at least two long or three short words long.

Best wishes,
Taco

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[NTG-context] Re: Opinions wanted

[Mikael Sundqvist]

Hi,

On Fri, 27 Feb 2026 at 15:03, Taco Hoekwater <taco@bittext.nl> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On 27 Feb 2026, at 12:24, Henning Hraban Ramm <texml@fiee.net> wrote:
> >
> > Am 27.02.26 um 11:09 schrieb Mikael Sundqvist:
> >> Hi all,
> >> Hans and I are exploring some new alignment features, in particular
> >> ragged right. One of the problems is to get a "nice rag". Attached is
> >> a sample with three different settings for various hsizes. The quote
> >> comes from a Twain book, and is in German, since that might be more
> >> challenging.
> >> So, please, which one, if any, look in general better, and, more
> >> importantly, why?
> >> The prize you might get is a new keyword to align.
> >
> > Thank you for looking into this. Very nice choice of text!
> >
> > Good “Flattersatz” (ragged setting) in opposite to “Rauhsatz” (unjustified setting) should avoid hyphenation and should have a good rhythm, i.e. alternation of longer and shorter lines, the “Flatterzone” (ragged width, underfull tolerance) can be quite big.
> >
> > Under these criteria, none of the samples is good, all have too many hyphenations, and in “bad” places (not only at composite word boundaries). While the hyphenation differs, none of the examples avoids “bad” hyphenations.
> > All have rivers with the quotation marks.
> > The short lines could be even shorter, otherwise the rhythm of all three examples is acceptable. I miss protrusion.
> >
> > I can’t decide which example I like best – all three have their “moments” in some areas.
>
> What Hraban said ;)

Thanks for your thoughts!

>
> My additional two cents:
>
> 1st cent: In my opinion the first and last full lines would ideally be shorter than the second and penultimate line. This is the rule for ragged right titles and should work equally well for full paragraphs.

Like

XXX XX
XXXXXXX XX
XXX XXXXX
XX XXXXXXX
XXXXXX XX
XXXXXXXXXX
XXXXX

?

> 2nd cent: With ragged typesetting, a hyphenation on the final full line should be forbidden(“Pla-\break ckerei” is exceptionally bad)

We did not alter the hyphenation setup, but indeed higher penalties
here would make sense. \setupalign[lesshyphenation] did a pretty good
job.

> 3rd cent (bonus): If there is this much text, it would be not be hard to make sure the last (partial) line is at least two long or three short words long.

That is also not set up in the examples. But \setupalign[lessorphans]
did a good job.

Again, thanks.

Let me next broaden the request a bit: Can you point to (pdf) examples
where ragged right looks a) very good and b) not good? It gets a bit
more concrete when looking at examples.

/Mikael
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[NTG-context] Re: Opinions wanted

[Jim]

I've heard a phrase about opinions, but it is too impolite to repeat here.

Anyway...

On Fri, Feb 27, 2026 at 12:24 (+0100), Henning Hraban Ramm wrote:

> Am 27.02.26 um 11:09 schrieb Mikael Sundqvist:
>> Hi all,

>> Hans and I are exploring some new alignment features, in particular
>> ragged right. One of the problems is to get a "nice rag". Attached is
>> a sample with three different settings for various hsizes. The quote
>> comes from a Twain book, and is in German, since that might be more
>> challenging.

>> So, please, which one, if any, look in general better, and, more
>> importantly, why?

>> The prize you might get is a new keyword to align.

> Thank you for looking into this. Very nice choice of text!

> Good “Flattersatz” (ragged setting) in opposite to “Rauhsatz” (unjustified
> setting) should avoid hyphenation and should have a good rhythm, i.e.
> alternation of longer and shorter lines, the “Flatterzone” (ragged width,
> underfull tolerance) can be quite big.

> Under these criteria, none of the samples is good, all have too many
> hyphenations, and in “bad” places (not only at composite word boundaries).
> While the hyphenation differs, none of the examples avoids “bad”
> hyphenations.
> All have rivers with the quotation marks.
> The short lines could be even shorter, otherwise the rhythm of all three
> examples is acceptable. I miss protrusion.

I find the rivers in the middle and rightmost column to be horribly
jarring.  The leftmost column is bad, but (IMHO) considerably less bad.

> I can’t decide which example I like best – all three have their “moments” in
> some areas.

(FWIW) I have the same feeling.  For reasons I can't articulate I have a
very mild overall preference for the first column.  But is that only
because the river is less bad?  I don't know.

Having said that, I think you erred by showing the three choices in
different colours, because different colours might affect how these are
viewed and preferred.  Do I prefer the first column because of its colour
for some strange reason?  I can't say.

                                Jim

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[NTG-context] Re: Opinions wanted

[Taco Hoekwater]

> 
>> 
>> My additional two cents:
>> 
>> 1st cent: In my opinion the first and last full lines would ideally be shorter than the second and penultimate line. This is the rule for ragged right titles and should work equally well for full paragraphs.
> 
> Like
> 
> XXX XX
> XXXXXXX XX
> XXX XXXXX
> XX XXXXXXX
> XXXXXX XX
> XXXXXXXXXX
> XXXXX
> 
> ?

Yes. But compared to Hraban’s observations, this was just a minor remark.


Best wishes,
Taco
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[NTG-context] Re: Opinions wanted

[Henning Hraban Ramm]

Am 27.02.26 um 16:31 schrieb Jim:
>> I can’t decide which example I like best – all three have their “moments” in
>> some areas.
> 
> (FWIW) I have the same feeling.  For reasons I can't articulate I have a
> very mild overall preference for the first column.  But is that only
> because the river is less bad?  I don't know.
> 
> Having said that, I think you erred by showing the three choices in
> different colours, because different colours might affect how these are
> viewed and preferred.  Do I prefer the first column because of its colour
> for some strange reason?  I can't say.

I was also wondering if I slightly preferred the second column because 
it’s black (“looks like type” or has highest contrast).

Really good “Flattersatz” is usually manual work and it’s not always 
possible, depending on the text.
But as mentioned, hyphenation and underfull tolerance (or how that’s 
called) settings can probably lead to better results.

It also depends on the goal – the 3rd example needs less lines, and that 
might be more important than optical harmony.

It would be nice if you could document it clearly in that way:
more/less lines with more/less hyphenation/risk of rivers/whatever.

Hraban
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[NTG-context] Re: Opinions wanted

[Hans Hagen via ntg-context]

On 2/27/2026 4:31 PM, Jim wrote:

> I find the rivers in the middle and rightmost column to be horribly
> jarring.  The leftmost column is bad, but (IMHO) considerably less bad.

Rivers here are a bit of a coincidence because these quotes stress space 
due to the small blobs. Even a river detector would be fooled.

Hans

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