Text Justification Previewer
Layout
| Measure | ≈ characters/line | Space stretch | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62ch | ≈ 125 | 1.06× | workable |
| Rivers | rare | — | ok |
Justified text is a good fit for print and for wide measures; on the web, ragged right is the safer default at narrow widths. Judge it here by eye, not by theory.
Preview
Justified text sets both edges flush by stretching word spaces. Without hyphenation the spaces on a narrow measure can open into rivers that pull the eye down the page; with hyphenation the same measure tightens and the texture evens out.
You Might Also Need
The text justification previewer renders one paragraph under each alignment and models the space stretch justified text needs on every line. You set the alignment, the hyphenation mode, the measure and the size, and the panel returns an approximate characters-per-line figure, a stretch multiplier and a verdict on whether the measure can carry justification at all.
What is Text Justification Previewer?
The text justification previewer works on a single paragraph. You paste the copy, choose an alignment, set the measure in characters and the size in pixels, and decide how hyphenation should behave; the preview redraws immediately while a reference table pairs the measure with an approximate characters-per-line count, a space stretch multiplier and a verdict. The generated stylesheet rule is written at the same time, so the readouts and the CSS always describe the same settings.
- Alignment modes: ragged right, justified, centred and ragged left.
- hyphens values: auto for language-aware hyphenation, manual for soft hyphens only, and none.
- Measure from 28ch to 110ch, defaulting to 62ch, and size from 12px to 24px, defaulting to 16px.
- A consecutive-hyphen switch that adds hyphenate-limit-lines: 2 when it is on; the rule always carries hyphenate-limit-chars: 6 3 3.
- Faces come from the shared preview catalogue, with Lora as the default.
- The reference table reports the measure, the approximate characters per line, the stretch multiplier and a verdict of too narrow, workable or too wide.
- A second table row states whether rivers of white are likely, which depends only on the hyphenation mode.
The stretch figure is a model rather than a measurement of the rendered paragraph. With justification off it stays at 1.00x; with justification on and hyphens set to none it rises to 1.18x, because a line with no legal break point must absorb its leftover space in the gaps between words; with any hyphenation mode available it settles at 1.06x. The characters-per-line estimate divides the measure by 3.1% of the pixel size, a rough average advance for a text face, so a 62ch measure at 16px reads as about 125 characters. The verdict comes from the measure alone: below 45ch the panel reports too narrow to justify, above 85ch too wide, and in between workable. The rule also carries overflow-wrap: break-word, so an unbreakable string cannot push the line wider than the measure that was set.
- The stretch multiplier is a fixed value per hyphenation mode, not a measurement of the paragraph you paste.
- The characters-per-line estimate assumes an average advance, so wide or condensed faces drift from it.
- Justification quality depends on the browser's hyphenation dictionary, which the panel cannot see or report on.
- Centred and ragged-left alignments are drawn for comparison, but the stretch and rivers rows describe justification only.
- The generated rule fixes line-height at 1.6 and hyphenate-limit-chars at 6 3 3, and neither is adjustable here.
Use it to decide whether a measure can carry justified text before the stylesheet is written, and to see what switching hyphenation on does to the texture at that width. Once the decision is made, the hyphenation controls themselves belong to the tester that exercises hyphens, hyphenate-limit-chars and language selection. A measure that spans several columns should be checked in the column layout builder, and when the real problem is a line that ends with a single stranded word, the widow and orphan detector measures where that word will actually fall.
How to use Text Justification Previewer
- Pick an alignment; justified is the mode the space-stretch model describes.
- Set hyphens to auto, manual or none and watch the rivers row change with the mode.
- Drag the measure and size sliders until the verdict reads workable for the copy you pasted.
- Copy the generated rule, which carries the text-align, hyphens and hyphenate-limit-chars values.
When to use Text Justification Previewer vs related tools
Reach for it when a wide measure has to be justified and you want to see the cost in space stretch before committing to a stylesheet. The hyphenation that makes justification survivable is exercised in the hyphenation tester, where the language, the character limits and the consecutive-line cap are all adjustable. A measure that will span several columns belongs to the text column layout builder, and a single stranded word at the end of a paragraph is what the widow and orphan detector reports from real font metrics.
Privacy & Security
This tool runs entirely in your browser — no data ever leaves your device. There is no server round-trip, no upload, no logging, and no account required. Your input is processed locally using client-side JavaScript and is never stored, transmitted, or accessible to anyone else. When you close the tab, everything disappears.