by Jason Snell
Amazon’s Kindle gets unjustified at last
I love the Amazon Kindle and have used it for years. I just completed a long trip and read several books on the compact and beautiful Kindle Oasis.
But for a device focused on words on a page, the typography on the Kindle has always been spotty. Very slowly over the years, Amazon upgraded the fonts. Two years ago Amazon finally added support for hyphenation.
Still, one frustration remained intact: Kindle’s insistence on forced justification. I’ve never liked forced justification, because it sometimes creates jarringly wide spaces between words on a line. I don’t consider a ragged right edge to be ugly, and unjustified text is easier for me to read.
But the wall has come down! As of today’s Kindle Oasis 5.8.9 update, Amazon supports ragged right alignment on books that support the Kindle’s “Enhanced Typesetting” feature. It’s an option from the Page tab of the Font panel.
I’ve already set the book I’m currently reading—Ninefox Gambit—to the new format. I guess if you wait long enough, sometimes you get the features you desire after all.