<P> Justification sometimes leads to typographic anomalies . One example: when justification is used in narrow columns, extremely large spaces may appear between words on lines with only two or three words . </P> <P> Another example: when the spaces between words line up approximately above one another in several loose lines, a distracting river of white space may appear . Rivers appear in right - aligned, left - aligned and centered settings too, but are more likely to appear in justified text, because of the additional word spacing . Since there is no added white space built into a typical full stop (period), other than that above the full stop itself, full stops only marginally contribute to the river effect . </P> <P> At one time, common word - processing software adjusted only the spacing between words, which was a source of the river problem . Modern word processing packages and professional publishing software significantly reduce the river effect by adjusting also the spacing between characters . Additionally, these systems use advanced digital typography techniques such as automatically choosing among different glyphs for the same character and slightly stretching or shrinking the character in order to better fill the line . The technique of glyph scaling or microtypography has been implemented by Adobe InDesign and more recent versions of pdfTeX . </P> <P> The problem of loose lines is reduced by using hyphenation . With older typesetting systems and WYSIWYG word processors, this was done manually: the compositor or author added hyphenation on a case - by - case basis . Currently, most typesetting systems (also called layout programs) and modern word processors hyphenate automatically, using a hyphenation algorithm . In addition, professional typesetting programs almost always provide for the use of an exception dictionary, in part because no algorithm hyphenates all words correctly, and in part because different publishers will follow different dictionaries . Different publishers may also have different rules about permissible hyphenation . Most publishers follow a basic system such as the Chicago Manual of Style or Oxford style, but will overlay their own "house style", which further restricts permissible hyphenation . </P>

What does it mean to justify text in microsoft word