1676: Full-Width Justification - Revision history

78.144.255.82: /* Explanation */ Tidying punctuation of ACN tag. Commented out the "as of two days later", as (if/when citation is fulfilled) we should have far better enumeration of how long it lasted (or is still lasting?).

2025-12-10T18:58:49Z

‎Explanation: Tidying punctuation of ACN tag. Commented out the "as of two days later", as (if/when citation is fulfilled) we should have far better enumeration of how long it lasted (or is still lasting?).

2A02:8440:F502:F02B:549D:DD4D:1892:4B43: /* Explanation */

2025-12-10T15:30:20Z

‎Explanation

Planer28 at 16:16, 5 December 2025

2025-12-05T16:16:52Z

KelOfTheStars!: Removed extra carriage return

2025-09-23T21:17:03Z

Removed extra carriage return

Maplestrip: /* Explanation */

2024-03-14T14:26:39Z

‎Explanation

42.book.addict at 00:32, 1 March 2024

2024-03-01T00:32:13Z

172.70.43.63: Added character for example

2024-02-21T03:11:08Z

Added character for example

Mushrooms: don't make jokes in the transcript honestly

2023-03-07T09:44:40Z

don't make jokes in the transcript honestly

172.70.131.5: /* Explanation */

2022-11-11T18:54:06Z

‎Explanation

Theusaf: Reverted edits by Donald Trump (talk) to last revision by CRLF

2022-05-26T19:57:05Z

Reverted edits by Donald Trump (talk) to last revision by CRLF

Show changes

@@ Line 44: / Line 44: @@
 "Non-breaking" in the title text refers to a similar process as zero-width joiners and no-break HTML and CSS; the whole snake would shift down if it were too wide to fit on a given line. This suggestion would likely be rejected; the Unicode consortium is very specific about which characters are added,{{Citation needed}} and always require a good reason{{Citation needed}} before adding a character or set of characters to the standard. Strange decisions by the consortium have previously been referenced in [[1253: Exoplanet Names]], [[1513: Code Quality]], and [[1525: Emojic 8 Ball]].
-Within an hour or two of this comic being published, a thread on the subject started on the Unicode Consortium’s official Unicode Mailing List {{ actual citation needed }}. As of two days later, it’s still running.
+Within an hour or two of this comic being published, a thread on the subject started on the Unicode Consortium’s official Unicode Mailing List.{{Actual citation needed}} <!-- As of two days later, it’s still running. -->
 ==Transcript==

@@ Line 44: / Line 44: @@
 "Non-breaking" in the title text refers to a similar process as zero-width joiners and no-break HTML and CSS; the whole snake would shift down if it were too wide to fit on a given line. This suggestion would likely be rejected; the Unicode consortium is very specific about which characters are added,{{Citation needed}} and always require a good reason{{Citation needed}} before adding a character or set of characters to the standard. Strange decisions by the consortium have previously been referenced in [[1253: Exoplanet Names]], [[1513: Code Quality]], and [[1525: Emojic 8 Ball]].
-Within an hour or two of this comic being published, a thread on the subject started on the Unicode Consortium’s official Unicode Mailing List. As of two days later, it’s still running.
+Within an hour or two of this comic being published, a thread on the subject started on the Unicode Consortium’s official Unicode Mailing List {{ actual citation needed }}. As of two days later, it’s still running.
 ==Transcript==

@@ Line 14: / Line 14: @@
 "'''Giving up'''" essentially means not attempting full justification for a particular line, which means it will not fit with the rest of the layout.
-"'''Letter spacing'''" involves an conspicuously large amount of whitespace between letters, sometimes suggesting a reading where each letter is a word until the reader recognizes what is intended. This method is in somewhat common use in newspaper and magazine layout, where it is generally known by the name "tracking" (distance between all letters) and "kerning" (distance between particular pairs of letters that fit together easily). However, letter spacing is unavailable for justification purposes in some languages (such as German), in which it is used for emphasis, as italics are in English.
+"'''Letter spacing'''" involves a conspicuously large amount of whitespace between letters, sometimes suggesting a reading where each letter is a word until the reader recognizes what is intended. This method is in somewhat common use in newspaper and magazine layout, where it is generally known by the name "tracking" (distance between all letters) and "kerning" (distance between particular pairs of letters that fit together easily). However, letter spacing is unavailable for justification purposes in some languages (such as German), in which it is used for emphasis, as italics are in English.
 "'''Hyphenation'''" can be confusing because it requires suspended recognition of the full word, confusing the eye into seeing, in the given case, the non-words "deindus" and "trialization". This creates difficulty in both pronouncing and parsing the word. Moreover, the decision of when and where to hyphenate is non-trivial, particularly for automated text layout; for example, breaking a word and leaving only two "orphaned" letters on the following line is generally considered an illegal hyphenation. Nevertheless, hyphenation is a very common means of handling extreme cases. The hyphenation option is most compact, yielding the extra word "ecological".

← Older revision		Revision as of 21:17, 23 September 2025
Line 41:		Line 41:

	One of the hieroglyphs ([https://codepoints.net/U+13192 U+13192 EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH I009A]) is described in [https://mjn.host.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/egyptian/unicode/tablemain.html source documents] as HORNED VIPER CRAWLING OUT OF ENCLOSURE, so it is literally a snake-building character. 𓆒 This is the character in question.		One of the hieroglyphs ([https://codepoints.net/U+13192 U+13192 EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH I009A]) is described in [https://mjn.host.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/egyptian/unicode/tablemain.html source documents] as HORNED VIPER CRAWLING OUT OF ENCLOSURE, so it is literally a snake-building character. 𓆒 This is the character in question.
−

	"Non-breaking" in the title text refers to a similar process as zero-width joiners and no-break HTML and CSS; the whole snake would shift down if it were too wide to fit on a given line. This suggestion would likely be rejected; the Unicode consortium is very specific about which characters are added,{{Citation needed}} and always require a good reason{{Citation needed}} before adding a character or set of characters to the standard. Strange decisions by the consortium have previously been referenced in [[1253: Exoplanet Names]], [[1513: Code Quality]], and [[1525: Emojic 8 Ball]].		"Non-breaking" in the title text refers to a similar process as zero-width joiners and no-break HTML and CSS; the whole snake would shift down if it were too wide to fit on a given line. This suggestion would likely be rejected; the Unicode consortium is very specific about which characters are added,{{Citation needed}} and always require a good reason{{Citation needed}} before adding a character or set of characters to the standard. Strange decisions by the consortium have previously been referenced in [[1253: Exoplanet Names]], [[1513: Code Quality]], and [[1525: Emojic 8 Ball]].

@@ Line 14: / Line 14: @@
 "'''Giving up'''" essentially means not attempting full justification for a particular line, which means it will not fit with the rest of the layout.
-"'''Letter spacing'''" involves an conspicuously large amount of whitespace between letters, suggesting a reading where each letter is a word until the reader recognizes what is intended. This method is in somewhat common use in newspaper and magazine layout, where it is generally known by the name "tracking" (distance between all letters) and "kerning" (distance between particular pairs of letters that fit together easily). However, letter spacing is unavailable for justification purposes in some languages (such as German), in which it is used for emphasis, as italics are in English.
+"'''Letter spacing'''" involves an conspicuously large amount of whitespace between letters, sometimes suggesting a reading where each letter is a word until the reader recognizes what is intended. This method is in somewhat common use in newspaper and magazine layout, where it is generally known by the name "tracking" (distance between all letters) and "kerning" (distance between particular pairs of letters that fit together easily). However, letter spacing is unavailable for justification purposes in some languages (such as German), in which it is used for emphasis, as italics are in English.
 "'''Hyphenation'''" can be confusing because it requires suspended recognition of the full word, confusing the eye into seeing, in the given case, the non-words "deindus" and "trialization". This creates difficulty in both pronouncing and parsing the word. Moreover, the decision of when and where to hyphenate is non-trivial, particularly for automated text layout; for example, breaking a word and leaving only two "orphaned" letters on the following line is generally considered an illegal hyphenation. Nevertheless, hyphenation is a very common means of handling extreme cases. The hyphenation option is most compact, yielding the extra word "ecological".

← Older revision		Revision as of 00:32, 1 March 2024
Line 43:		Line 43:


−	"Non-breaking" in the title text refers to a similar process as zero-width joiners and no-break HTML and CSS; the whole snake would shift down if it were too wide to fit on a given line. This suggestion would likely be rejected; the Unicode consortium is very specific about which characters are added{{Citation needed}}, and always require a good reason{{Citation needed}} before adding a character or set of characters to the standard. Strange decisions by the consortium have previously been referenced in [[1253: Exoplanet Names]], [[1513: Code Quality]], and [[1525: Emojic 8 Ball]].	+	"Non-breaking" in the title text refers to a similar process as zero-width joiners and no-break HTML and CSS; the whole snake would shift down if it were too wide to fit on a given line. This suggestion would likely be rejected; the Unicode consortium is very specific about which characters are added,{{Citation needed}} and always require a good reason{{Citation needed}} before adding a character or set of characters to the standard. Strange decisions by the consortium have previously been referenced in [[1253: Exoplanet Names]], [[1513: Code Quality]], and [[1525: Emojic 8 Ball]].

	Within an hour or two of this comic being published, a thread on the subject started on the Unicode Consortium’s official Unicode Mailing List. As of two days later, it’s still running.		Within an hour or two of this comic being published, a thread on the subject started on the Unicode Consortium’s official Unicode Mailing List. As of two days later, it’s still running.

@@ Line 40: / Line 40: @@
 **An {{w|emoji}} snake.
-One of the hieroglyphs ([https://codepoints.net/U+13192 U+13192 EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH I009A]) is described in [https://mjn.host.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/egyptian/unicode/tablemain.html source documents] as HORNED VIPER CRAWLING OUT OF ENCLOSURE, so it is literally a snake-building character.
+One of the hieroglyphs ([https://codepoints.net/U+13192 U+13192 EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH I009A]) is described in [https://mjn.host.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/egyptian/unicode/tablemain.html source documents] as HORNED VIPER CRAWLING OUT OF ENCLOSURE, so it is literally a snake-building character. 𓆒 This is the character in question.
 "Non-breaking" in the title text refers to a similar process as zero-width joiners and no-break HTML and CSS; the whole snake would shift down if it were too wide to fit on a given line. This suggestion would likely be rejected; the Unicode consortium is very specific about which characters are added{{Citation needed}}, and always require a good reason{{Citation needed}} before adding a character or set of characters to the standard. Strange decisions by the consortium have previously been referenced in [[1253: Exoplanet Names]], [[1513: Code Quality]], and [[1525: Emojic 8 Ball]].

@@ Line 49: / Line 49: @@
 Strategies for full-width justification
-[Below the caption is a column with six boxes, each showing a different "strategy" for justification which is annotated beside it. Here the annotation is written at the top and the text below. The top and bottom of the text is cut of in the middle, but as it can be "read" this is written anyway. Only for hyphenation does an extra word appear at the end. In the last with snakes, a snake is drawn to cover the entire spaaace from the end of between to the right border.]
+[Below the caption is a column with six boxes, each showing a different "strategy" for justification which is annotated beside it. Here the annotation is written at the top and the text below. The top and bottom of the text is cut of in the middle, but as it can be "read" this is written anyway. Only for hyphenation does an extra word appear at the end. In the last with snakes, a snake is drawn to cover the entire space from the end of between to the right border.]
 <dl><!-- Note: the CSS is set important and directly on the <dd> to avoid being upset by any current or future stylesheet. If the text is rendered "plain" it still should look about right -->

@@ Line 16: / Line 16: @@
 "'''Letter spacing'''" involves an conspicuously large amount of whitespace between letters, suggesting a reading where each letter is a word until the reader recognizes what is intended. This method is in somewhat common use in newspaper and magazine layout, where it is generally known by the name "tracking" (distance between all letters) and "kerning" (distance between particular pairs of letters that fit together easily). However, letter spacing is unavailable for justification purposes in some languages (such as German), in which it is used for emphasis, as italics are in English.
-"'''Hyphenation'''" is confusing because it requires suspended recognition of the full word, confusing the eye into seeing, in the given case, the non-words "deindus" and "trialization". This creates difficulty in both pronouncing and parsing the word. Moreover, the decision of when and where to hyphenate is non-trivial, particularly for automated text layout; for example, breaking a word and leaving only two "orphaned" letters on the following line is generally considered an illegal hyphenation. Nevertheless, hyphenation is a very common means of handling extreme cases. The hyphenation option is most compact, yielding the extra word "ecological".
+"'''Hyphenation'''" can be confusing because it requires suspended recognition of the full word, confusing the eye into seeing, in the given case, the non-words "deindus" and "trialization". This creates difficulty in both pronouncing and parsing the word. Moreover, the decision of when and where to hyphenate is non-trivial, particularly for automated text layout; for example, breaking a word and leaving only two "orphaned" letters on the following line is generally considered an illegal hyphenation. Nevertheless, hyphenation is a very common means of handling extreme cases. The hyphenation option is most compact, yielding the extra word "ecological".
-"'''Stretching'''" appears visually unnatural and unfamiliar, and may present technical difficulties in rendering.
+"'''Stretching'''", in which individual letters are displayed as wider than usual so that a word will take up more space, appears visually unnatural and unfamiliar, and may present technical difficulties in rendering.
 Adding "'''filler'''" words is generally undesirable: in the worst case, the meaning may be unintentionally altered, or the tone might be rendered too informal, as in the given example, and even in the best case, the text becomes less concise and potentially more difficult to read. Automation is also difficult. However, filler words added by a human, especially the original author of the text, are the least visually conspicuous, and may be the most practical solution in some scenarios.