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The high per-line character count in contracts and other word-processed legal documents certainly makes them harder to read. (By the way, I’m not taking into account two-column documents: after flirting with a two-column format, I decided, with the help of some prodding by readers, that it wouldn’t be viable for contracts.)
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For example, Felici says that “the optimal line length is nine or ten words (figure an average of 5 1/2 characters a word),” in other words around 50 to 55 characters. That’s more than any recommended limits I’ve seen. (That’s the explanation I offer in MSCD 12.3.)Īn unjustified line of 12-point Times New Roman on letter-sized paper with one-inch margins (the standard setup at law firms) contains on average between 77 and 80 characters. I used to think that the problem was that by normal typographic standards, word-processed documents on letter-sized paper contain a relatively high number of characters. I’ve long wondered what renders justified harder to read. If you wish to do a quick readability test of your own, here is a document with justified, one-inch-margin, 12-point Times New Roman text here is the same document with a ragged right margin. This creates an irregular margin along the right side of the text column.Īlthough as a general matter I have no problem reading justified text, I dislike it intensely in word-processed documents, including contracts, because I find that it makes them much harder to read. On lines that do not fully fill the measure (nearly all of them), any leftover space is deposited along the right-hand margin. Ragged right A text margin treatment in which all lines begin hard against the left-hand margin but are allowed to end short of the right-hand margin. The conventional alternative is a ragged right margin. To achieve justified margins, a composition program must flex the spaces on a line, compressing them or expanding them.
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This creates straight, (usually) vertical margins on both left and right. Justified margins A text alignment in which the type in each line of a column completely fills the measure.
#How to justify a paragraph in google docs manual
Here’s how James Felici, The Complete Manual of Typography (2003), defines “justified margins”: To request this page in an alternate format, contact us.In most printed text that I read, whether in books, magazines, or newspapers, the margins are justified. Microsoft PowerPoint: Intermediate / Advanced
#How to justify a paragraph in google docs how to
How to Strikethrough Text in Microsoft Word (with Shortcuts) Related courses How to Superscript in Google Docs (Mac or Windows) How to Do a Hanging Indent in Google Docs (3 Ways) How to Change Margins in Google Docs (2 Ways) Subscribe to get more articles like this oneĭid you find this article helpful? If you would like to receive new articles, join our email list. Select the paragraph(s) in the Google Docs file you want to keep with the next paragraph.īelow is Keep with next in the Line Spacing sub-menu in Google Docs:.To keep a paragraph with the next paragraph: Keeping a paragraph with the next paragraph A sub-menu appears.īelow is Keep Lines together in the Line Spacing sub-menu in Google Docs: Click Format in the menu and then select Line Spacing.
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In the Google Docs file, select the paragraph(s) with the lines you want to keep together.To keep the lines in a paragraph together on the same page: It's best to eliminate any blank paragraphs in a long document.A paragraph is anything with a hard return after it (you have pressed Enter or Return).It's important to understand some key paragraph concepts first: Recommended article: Google Docs Shortcuts to Quickly Select Text In Google Docs, you can use Paragraph commands in the Format menu to keep paragraphs from breaking across pages. In either case, you'll likely want to avoid inserting manual page breaks. If you want to keep the lines in a paragraph together, you can choose Keep lines together. If you want to keep a paragraph with the next paragraph, you can turn on Keep with next. You can keep lines and paragraphs together in Google Docs files to stop paragraphs from breaking between pages. Keep Lines and Paragraphs Together in Google Docs (Stop Paragraphs from Splitting Across Pages)īy Avantix Learning Team | Updated December 9, 2020