Justif
Languages and libraries
javascript text layout library
SHOW HN2026
How HN took it
14 positive, 8 neutral or asking, 2 mixed, 1 critical, out of 25 comments about the project. Thread score +0.45.
Design: 7 for, 0 againstExecution: 1 for, 1 againstIdea: 2 for, 0 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Demo looks beautiful and impressive; typography much improved
From 4 comments
Wow, I'm seriously impressed! Questions for the author: I haven't had a chance to read the code yet, but how does this actually adjust the text? I get that it uses Knuth-Plass to…
jstrieb on HNImplemented on https://federalistreader.org ... made a big difference! You can see the comparison here: https://federalistreader.org/notes/justif/ Nicely done! (and thanks for…
vhwalke on HNThis is great! Loved the demo and controls (and nice touch to include The Frog Prince as one of the sample texts lol). I think by doing tracking and expansion you're going even…
svat on HNSide-by-side didn’t do it for me but flicker made all the difference! This is great, wish that browsers would implement a better algorithm. Also good execution with the demo page.
antics9 on HN
Useful for print templates, blogs and historical typesetting
From 4 comments
Good，this is very helpful for handling the layout in the print template.
heroncoder on HNWill be switching my blog to this.
sebmellen on HNWow! I've spent the past few weeks setting 18th-century newspaper text on the web - justified, up to three narrow columns, period ligature, and the gap between CSS justification…
vhwalke on HNA most welcome addition to a webmaster’s toolkit. Congratulations!
savoyard on HN
Objections
Quadratic-time algorithm may be slow on long paragraphs
From 1 comment
Beware: the TeX justification algorithm is quadratic-time.
userbinator on HN
Drop caps with floats overflow the gutter
From 2 comments
Does this work with drop caps or could it be made to work with them? Cool work by the way.
asimpletune on HNFollow-up, since I asked the questions above: I spent the evening running Justif against the hardest page I have: three 356px columns of 18th-century text set in IM Fell at…
vhwalke on HN
Requests
Support for irregular shaped edges and per-line widths
From 1 comment
I haven't looked at the API yet, but the demo is great on my phone. Instead of just justified blocks, can you have it do a "justified" (even amount of spacing) from an…
torgoguys on HN
Exclusion selector for paragraphs like drop caps
From 1 comment
Follow-up, since I asked the questions above: I spent the evening running Justif against the hardest page I have: three 356px columns of 18th-century text set in IM Fell at…
vhwalke on HN
Thin or intersentence space distinction for abbreviations like No.
From 1 comment
Great work. It looks as the space in "No. 12" is too large. Is it possible to distinguish between space and sentence-end-space?
emil-lp on HN
Questions
Whether the maker used LLMs to write the code
From 1 comment
Wow, I'm seriously impressed! Questions for the author: I haven't had a chance to read the code yet, but how does this actually adjust the text? I get that it uses Knuth-Plass to…
jstrieb on HN
How hyphenation and narrow column widths are handled
From 1 comment
Wow! I've spent the past few weeks setting 18th-century newspaper text on the web - justified, up to three narrow columns, period ligature, and the gap between CSS justification…
vhwalke on HN
Alternatives named
Chromium text-wrap: balance
From 1 comment
Chromium supposedly implemented Knuth-Plass for CSS's "text-wrap: balance", but reading the end of the tracking bug [0] it seems it stops at six lines? (Design doc: [1]) [0]…
wrs on HN
TeX microtype package
From 1 comment
Thank you! And yes by default TeX doesn't do tracking or expansion, but the microtype [0] package does. And I did struggle a bit with deciding how best to do the comparison to…
lyall on HN