Justifying Text-Wrap: Pretty

5 days ago

Safari introduced a reasonable implementation of `text-wrap: pretty` in 2025, improving web typography.
Historically, browsers used a naive greedy algorithm for line breaking, leading to less attractive text layouts.
The Knuth-Plass algorithm, developed in 1981, optimized line breaking for print, but web browsers faced additional challenges due to dynamic window sizes.
`text-wrap: pretty` aims to balance line lengths, while `text-align: justify` adjusts whitespace for exact alignment.
Combining `text-wrap: pretty` with `text-align: justify` in Safari can result in excessive whitespace between words.
The issue arises because the dynamic programming approach slightly undershoots the target width to balance line lengths, which becomes noticeable when justifying text.
The article calls for a fix to this issue to achieve the intended typographic beauty on the web.

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