In Typography Line length is the width occupied by a block of typeset text, measured in inches, picas and points. A block of text or paragraph has a maximum line length that fits a determined design.
Line length is determined by typographic parameters based on a formal grid and template with several goals in mind; balance and function for fit and readability with a sensitivity to aesthetic style in typography. Typographers adjust line length to aid legibility or copy fit. Text can be flush left and ragged right, flush right and ragged left, or justified where all lines are of equal length. In a ragged right setting line lengths vary to create a ragged right edge of lines varying in length. Sometimes this can be visually satisfying. For justified and ragged right settings typographers can adjust line length to avoid unwanted hyphens, rivers of white space, and orphaned words/characters at the end of lines (e.g.: "The", "I", "He", "We").
Famous quotes containing the words line and/or length:
“When I had mapped the pond ... I laid a rule on the map lengthwise, and then breadthwise, and found, to my surprise, that the line of greatest length intersected the line of greatest breadth exactly at the point of greatest depth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“With wonderful art he grinds into paint for his picture all his moods and experiences, so that all his forces may be brought to the encounter. Apparently writing without a particular design or responsibility, setting down his soliloquies from time to time, taking advantage of all his humors, when at length the hour comes to declare himself, he puts down in plain English, without quotation marks, what he, Thomas Carlyle, is ready to defend in the face of the world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)