I really like the clutter-free reading experience the new Reader feature in Safari 5 brings. However, what I don’t like too much is the standard html rendering it uses for typography. The full fix for this would be to write a Safari extension to run the whole text through LaTeX or the very least through the Knuth & Plass algorithm.

However, a quick fix for the horrible justified text is this:

Open the contents of Applications/Safari.app:

Then open Resources/Reader.html in a text editor.

Around line 82 there is a CSS rule for .page. Update it to left-align the paragraphs:

<pre> .page { font: 20px Palatino, Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 160%; text-align: left !important; } </pre>

Use !important as well, just to make sure. Save the file (you might need to type in your password here), and you’re done!

If you dislike Palatino, you can of course edit the CSS to your heart’s content. For me, the biggest beef were the rivers flowing through the text when using the default justified alignment.