Automatic microjustification

[Andrew4096]

I'm a novice with Scribus, but I noticed almost immediately in Scribus 1.3.3 on Ubuntu Linux that justified text generally looks horrible, especially with narrow columns.  There is no kerning or spacing adjustment between characters, and the spaces between words can appear huge.  I've searched through the Preferences menu and online for solutions, but it looks like there's no fix for this problem in Scribus.

Years ago, when I started out using WordStar 3.3 on MS-DOS with a Qume daisy wheel printer, the program in conjunction with the printer driver featured something called "microjustification".  It not only aligned the text to the left and right margins, but also sprinkled tiny spaces (about 1/120th of an inch increments) between characters, stretching words out so the spaces between them looked more proportional.  This was accomplished with the embedded ".uj" command, and was completely automatic.  Even with a fixed-pitch printing wheel it made the page look as if it had been typeset with a proportional font.

Considering the advances that character and printing technology has made in the intervening 25-plus years, Scribus should have this feature, too.

If I've missed this capability in Scribus, I'd appreciate someone steering me in the right direction.

[utnik]

hi andrew

select your text box and take a look at 'properties' (f2) → 'text' → 'advanced settings' – there you'll find 'word tracking' and 'glyph extension'. for really narrow columns you should define a minimal glyph extension between 95 and 90% – play with different values till it looks good...

btw. you should use scribus 1.4.1 instead of the old 1.3.3 branch!

utnik