A Raging Office Debate: One Space or Two after a period?

How can this be? Yes, for years, you have been told to insert two spaces after periods, and on a typewriter you should. However, a computer with a word processing program is no typewriter!

On a typewriter all characters are monospaced, that is, they each take up the same amount of space. For example, the letter i occupies as much space as the letter m. Because the characters are monospaced, you must insert two spaces after periods to separate one sentence from the next. Frankly, your eye needs the “white space” to make reading easier, to help you distinguish one sentence from the next. Reading is made easier by variability of space. Monospacing results in no variability of space while two spaces adds variability.

On a computer, whether you are using a Macintosh or a Microsoft Windows computer, all characters are proportionally spaced. The only exceptions are the fonts Courier and Monaco. Proportional spacing means that each character only occupies the amount of space that it needs; and that space is proportional to the space occupied by other characters. For example, the letter i only occupies about one-fifth of the space occupied by the letter m. Consequently, the need for two spaces after punctuation to add “white space” to make reading easier becomes a moot point. It simply is no longer necessary.

Take a look at this example:

Notice in this paragraph how the letters line up in columns, one under the other, just as on your typewriter. This is because each character takes up the same amount of space. This monospacing is what makes it necessary to use two spaces to separate sentences.

This paragraph, however, uses a font with proportional spacing. Each character takes up a proportional amount of the space available. Thus the single space between sentences is enough to visually separate them, and two spaces creates a disturbing gap.

If you still are doubtful, try this: Type the sentences above in your favorite word processor. Type the first paragraph in Courier. Then type the second in another font, say Times New Roman or Bookman.

Of course, this one-space rule applies just as well to the spacing after colons, semicolons, question marks, quotation marks, exclamation points, or any other punctuation you can imagine. Yes, this is a difficult habit to break, but it must be done.

Take a look at any magazine or book on your shelf. You will never find two spaces between sentences!

How many spaces should I leave after a period or other concluding mark of punctuation?
Publications in the United States today usually have the same spacing after a punctuation mark as between words on the same line. Since word processors make available the same fonts used by typesetters for printed works, many writers, influenced by the look of typeset publications, now leave only one space after a concluding punctuation mark. In addition, most publishers' guidelines for preparing a manuscript on disk ask authors to type only the spaces that are to appear in print.

Because it is increasingly common for papers and manuscripts to be prepared with a single space after all punctuation marks, this spacing is shown in the examples in the MLA Handbook and the MLA Style Manual. As a practical matter, however, there is nothing wrong with using two spaces after concluding punctuation marks unless an instructor or editor requests that you do otherwise.

Sorry, kisses and all that, but it's not a matter of opinion.

You can.

They're smarter than that. Use one space, always, and unless you're using a monospaced font, the computer fills in the extra space that should come after the period on its own.

somebody here says the MLA Handbook asks for two spaces, or used to

Forty years ago!

I don't write for any magazines, nor do I write by MLA standards. If someone wants me to, I'd be happy to oblige with 1 space after periods. Until then, I am sticking with what looks right to me. I have more dead typographers on my side of this debate, and that's what really counts, no?

crossposts

But truly, for print of any kind, even on the web, it's one space. Always. Everywhere.

I think that MLA guideline seems good: One if it's official and to be submitted somewhere, two if you're writing a txt msg to your neice.

crosspost

(xpost)

A-fucking-men.

LaTeX makes you handle this on your own. Seems difficult to automate.

OTM OTM OTM OTM THERE IS NO REASON FOR IT IT'S NOT EVEN NECESSARY WITH MONOSPACE FONTS AND IT LOOKS GROSS

but txt msg have a text length limit. if there's one place to not use two spaces surely it's txting.

ha ok all of this was covered four years ago

xpost lex (and the other guy who was doing it) -- please don't mean you're manually doing it to every space

find and replace ## with #!

er, don't type the #

I learned two spaces when I learned to type on a typewriter, and I've never really seen the need to unlearn it because, apart from on here, I tend not to foist my typing onto pedants.

aaargh so many times i've had to edit those extraneous spaces out

Why?

I am unduly proud of myself for not having taken a part in this thread until now.

i had a supervisor tell me to use two spaces once and i couldn't convince her she was wrong. old ppl!

Two spaces is completely unlike anything seen in printed media or the web. For good reason, if anyone's interested, but that's not the point. The point is that if you want people alive today (and therefore used to reading stuff published during the 20th and 21st centuries) to read your text comfortably and at speed, then use one space, because that's closer to what they're used to. The effect on reading speed is subconscious but measurable. And this even applies to people who use two spaces, because even they rarely see two spaces in the wild, outside their own copy of Word.

two spaces seems like something only an insane person would do

Why?

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Monday, December 28, 2009 7:48 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Too much whitespace (especially irregular whitespace) reduces readability by making the location of the next glyph further from the previous one and/or less predictable. Same reason you shouldn't use double-spacing unless you're editing (and even then...).

one space

Too little whitespace makes your text a big blocky jumble of letters that can't be neatly and rapidly sorted out into individual sentences.

that's why you have paragraphs and tabs and stuff, and text in columns

If you really want to break your sentences up then you could make them different colours?

maybe a line break after each sentence

maybe dont write at all

1 blank page after each period.

and then a big ornament between paragraphs

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2271/2391815650_5e99fb4ef3.jpg

skjfsjkdf

hieroglyphics

p.s. From the bible on this stuff (copy of which is owned by every printer/book designer i know) and is backed up by experience and testing with readers (including testing for reading speed):

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2271/2391815650_5e99fb4ef3.jpg

In the nineteenth century, which was a dark and inflationary age in typography and type design, many compositors were encouraged to stuff extra space between sentences. Generations of twentieth century typists were then taught to do the same, by hitting the spacebar twice after every period. Your typing as well as your typesetting will benefit from unlearning this quaint Victorian habit. As a general rule, no more than a single space is required after a period, colon or any other mark of punctuation.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2271/2391815650_5e99fb4ef3.jpg

Dudes who established the HTML spec had the right idea:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2271/2391815650_5e99fb4ef3.jpg

All white space in HTML, in any combination of spaces, tabs or line breaks, is automatically collapsed to a single word space. Therefore this guideline is automatically adhered to regardless of your training as a typist.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2271/2391815650_5e99fb4ef3.jpg

skfjnjsdk

But using the SAME amount space between sentences as between words also looks bad, right? E.G. here's how TeX does it:

"TeX usually assumes that a period (the character ".") ends a sentence if it is followed by a space, or by a right parenthesis and then a space, or by other similar strings. Consequently it puts more space between a period (or the immediately following right parenthesis or similar character) and the following word than it does between one word and the next."

I can't seem to find a definitive answer to how MUCH space LaTeX puts between sentences by default, but several sources put it as 1.5 times the interword space; so in that sense the optimum (because I take it a gospel that whatever LaTeX does is optimal) is exactly halfway between single space and double space post-period. In order to get a single space after the period you have to use a special command, \frenchspacing.

i think i noticed that about latex because the sentences seem too far apart, in my opinion

you wanna go head to head with Knuth in a typesetting war, be my guest

Yeah, neither is strictly right, but for practical use (i.e. unless we add another button to the keyboard), one space is _much_ closer to what you typically see in well-flowed typeset text. iirc, the space after the end of a sentence is more elastic than the interword space in TeX, so it ends up growing to be a little larger than a single space. It certainly is a little larger than a single space in a modern paperback.

But two full spaces is just ludicrous. (Which is why it's quite hard to do in HTML, TeX, etc., etc., but unfortunately not hard to do in Word). It's especially bad in fixed width fonts like courier, where the spaces are already colossal.

i propose w/replace the period w/this guy _*_

xp, Knuth is a computer programmer and mathematician, and Computer Modern is a pretty font with great math characters, but he's not a typographer, designer or artist. TeX's layout engine does a an amazing job of for an end-user application, but its behavior is not perfect, and its problems have to be worked around by publishing houses who use it for their typesetting (very few of whom use Computer Modern), e.g. http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/microtype/.

no way man, period should be DUMPLINGS!

maybe dont write at all

― max, Monday, December 28, 2009 3:06 PM

maybe all lowercase with no punctuation

a guy can dream

(!)

maybe all lowercase with no punctuation period space space a guy can dream period

".  "

^ . ^

two-space ppl are disgusting savages imo

^^ said like a true twitterean

i like two spaces. it makes the same kind of internal sense to me that omitting closing quotation marks from the end of a paragraph of speech, when the next continues the speech, makes. a nice differentiation between commas and full stops. being surprised that people haven't adopted what they've seen in print seems curious; it seems an opportunity for uncontroversial exercising of preference, like choosing between 'single' or "double" inverted commas.

MLA, Chicago and AP style manuals all call for a single space after a period btw.

Who would even read the memo that tells people not to put two spaces after a period?

Haha, everyone who holds the position "editor" at my company!

ohman i become extra critical of text with 2 spaces after a period, can't even help it. because, i mean, yeah, i learned the two spaces rule in typing class in 1989 but unlearned it instantly in 1993 because of journalism/computers/internet logical-reality-based triple threat i mean cmon.

1993 was precisely when I was learning to do this. Sorry I didn't go to High Tech High.

For real though - I guess this thread has convinced me to get with the program and start spacing once. Only because everybody else does it, not because it increases readability for me.

I learned the two spaces rule in typing class in the late 80s but when I started using LaTeX in the mid 90s I switched to one space. Or maybe I stopped earlier b/c I was lazy and didn't want to type two spaces when one seemed adequate. As a writer my view is that the publishers should be able to/responsible for making my text look like they want it to look (said after having spent entire days in the past converting my LaTeX documents to Word---lately I've been publishing with houses that accept LaTeX, thankfully).

I was taught this in the mid-90s. I always kinda figured that single-spacers were wrong/slow/lazy. Oh well. But the I also went to a school that taucht us to write 'z' like this http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Z-small-VA-64x88.svg so I should have noticed we were backwards simpletons sooner than I did.

'z'like this http://wpcontent.answers.com/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/24/Z-small-VA-64x88.svg/105px-Z-small-VA-64x88.svg.png

'z'like thishttp://i48.tinypic.com/jr41ok.png

Man, that shit was my favorite cursive. R.I.P.

Haha, everyone who holds the position "editor" at my company!

Yeah, I was gonna say, I work for a publisher of reference materials, and we adhere to the one-space rule. I think, as with HTML, additional spaces may even be stripped out by the software we use.

That's how I do a cursive 'z'

Also wtf with capital cursive 'Q'? Looks like a '2' amirite?

When I moved school I got yelled at for using that cursive 'z'. I guess they thought I was making it up. :(

u guys only little kids call it cursive

http://www.wicked-t-shirts.com/specials/img/IMG-rizzuto.gif