Re: freeware to justify text.. WordStar 3.3/4.0

On 7/7/26 03:59, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
> On 7/6/2026 10:42 PM, Alan K. wrote:
>> On 7/6/26 9:52 AM, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
>>>
>>> Justification!! Related to "Justice"? :)
>>>
>>> I don't think Thunderbird could do that...
>>
>> I always knew it as right-left-justification.
>> But if you notice that section of text he 
>> highlighted there are no extra spaces to force
>> the r-l justification.   It just happens to 
>> work out that way.
>> 
>> That's how most justification is done.  Wider 
>> spaces applied along with hyphenation where
>> needed helps too.
> 
> Thanks. I am still wondering whether Thunderbird
> or the old Netscape could justify texts like
> Wordstar.

I don't remember Wordstar justifying text, but it would be unsightly in 
a monospace typeface anyway so I wouldn't have done it.  Alignment 
(left, center, right) is different and I'm sure I remember centering 
titles.  Justification was possible with Word Perfect (it had 
proportional typefaces) along with a lot of other improvements -- but I 
always felt guilty for abandoning Wordstar.

When I really wanted stuff to look nice I used Ventura Publisher, which 
always needed to be beaten into submission. Really expensive, maybe 10 
installation floppies.  The marketing people had unlimited budgets so I 
traded some juicy gossip for a copy.  You could only save your work 
within VP, which was a monumental nuisance and perhaps contributed to 
its demise.

There's a linux word processor called joe which has a WS emulator called 
jstar.  I might try to use it, but I'm now hooked on pico for simple 
things and libreoffice when I want letter-quality results.

And just to show how old I am, I did some hand-justified promotional 
handouts with my IBM Executive typewriter that looked like they were 
typeset.

> I am still impressed by Wordstar 3.3/4.0 doing
> it properly. :)

-- 
Cheers, Bev
   "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the
    American Public."                              -- H.L. Mencken