| <refentry xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" |
| xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" |
| xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude" |
| xmlns:src="http://nwalsh.com/xmlns/litprog/fragment" |
| xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" |
| version="5.0" xml:id="man.justify"> |
| <refmeta> |
| <refentrytitle>man.justify</refentrytitle> |
| <refmiscinfo class="other" otherclass="datatype">boolean</refmiscinfo> |
| </refmeta> |
| <refnamediv> |
| <refname>man.justify</refname> |
| <refpurpose>Justify text to both right and left margins?</refpurpose> |
| </refnamediv> |
| |
| <refsynopsisdiv> |
| <src:fragment xml:id="man.justify.frag"> |
| <xsl:param name="man.justify">0</xsl:param></src:fragment> |
| </refsynopsisdiv> |
| |
| <refsection><info><title>Description</title></info> |
| |
| <para>If non-zero, text is justified to both the right and left |
| margins (or, in roff terminology, "adjusted and filled" to both the |
| right and left margins). If zero (the default), text is adjusted to |
| the left margin only -- producing what is traditionally called |
| "ragged-right" text.</para> |
| |
| <note> |
| <para>The default value for this parameter is zero because justified |
| text looks good only when it is also hyphenated. Without hyphenation, |
| excessive amounts of space often end up getting between words, in |
| order to "pad" lines out to align on the right margin.</para> |
| |
| <para>The problem is that groff is not particularly smart about how it |
| does hyphenation; it can end up hyphenating a lot of things that you |
| don't want hyphenated. So, disabling both justification and |
| hyphenation ensures that hyphens won't get inserted where you don't |
| want to them, and you don't end up with lines containing excessive |
| amounts of space between words.</para> |
| |
| <para>However, if do you decide to set a non-zero value for the |
| <parameter>man.justify</parameter> parameter (to enable |
| justification), then you should probably also set a non-zero value for |
| <parameter>man.hyphenate</parameter> (to enable hyphenation).</para> |
| |
| <para>Yes, these default settings run counter to how most existing man |
| pages are formatted. But there are some notable exceptions, such as |
| the <literal>perl</literal> man pages.</para> |
| </note> |
| </refsection> |
| </refentry> |