February 24, 2026
Space Wars: Pretty vs Greedy
Justifying Text-Wrap: Pretty
Safari’s pretty paragraphs spark a hyphen brawl and a Chrome ‘who did it first’ feud
TLDR: Safari’s new “pretty” line-breaking aims to make text look better, but mixing it with full justification stretches spaces awkwardly. Commenters feud over hyphens, call the demo unfair, and argue Chrome did it first—because how your browser breaks lines actually affects readability across the web.
Safari just shipped “text-wrap: pretty,” a setting that tries to make paragraphs look nicer by breaking lines more smartly. Cue the internet: the demo looks good until you mix it with full justification (aligning both edges), where spaces get hilariously stretched. The community pounced, turning a typography tweak into a full-on culture war. One camp is yelling: bring back hyphens for cleaner breaks. Another points out the demo compares apples and oranges, with different hyphen settings, calling the test unfair. There’s also the “Gutenberg fan club” riffing on the XV-century shoutout, while critics say the ancient example is a bad ad—narrow columns, too many breaks, hard to read. Then came the plot twist: a commenter drops receipts that Chrome shipped this in 2023 (link), blowing up the “Safari first!” narrative and igniting a browser brag-off. Meanwhile, old-school nerds fondly name-drop the classic text reformatter “par,” turning the thread into a nostalgia party. Between jokes about “space inflation,” memes about “make paragraphs great again,” and a hyphen revival movement, the vibe is equal parts designer drama and browser beef. Verdict: the feature is promising, but the combo with justification is sparking more debate than beauty.
Key Points
- •Safari implemented CSS text-wrap: pretty in 2025, aiming for more balanced line breaks.
- •The article explains historical and technical context, citing Gutenberg’s manual methods and Knuth–Plass’s 1981 dynamic programming algorithm in TeX.
- •Browsers historically used greedy line-breaking; web layouts require online computation due to variable window sizes.
- •Combining text-wrap: pretty with text-align: justify can inflate whitespace, as justification forces exact line widths.
- •WebKit’s approach targets a slightly narrower width to enable under/overshoot, which can conflict with justification and produce visible spacing issues.