# Double Space After a Period **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 28, 2020, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-space-after-a-period/852708 "2020-04-28T03:15:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-space-after-a-period/852708/41 "2020-04-29T13:49:21Z")
LibreOffice is more of a business program than a typesetting program in my experience. Interesting that InDesign adds extra space if you type more than one. I prepared a document recently using ConTeXt, and it definitely ignores them. I explicitly set it up to use what we are calling “single spacing” (lest anyone here think I am advocating the use of extra space in all circumstances), which interestingly enough is not the default, and it handled everything pretty automatically including justification, tracking, leading, hairspaces, and other tweaks without having to screw around too much. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-space-after-a-period/852708/42 "2020-04-29T13:51:24Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I am so tired of this ridiculous argument. > > Double spacing at the end of sentences was designed for manuscripts written on typewriters. It had no place otherwise. Printers automatically eliminated them, part of their endless battles with typewritten manuscripts that included dealing with hyphens, en- and em-dashes, converting 1/3 into ⅓, and adding, sometimes clumsily, extraneous spaces to justify text because they always used proportional typefaces. Whole corps of proofreaders and copyeditors were required to check the work and galley proofs went back and forth wasting even more time. > > Double-spaced manuscripts were raw product and had no more place in civilized society than loaf pans of uncooked bread. Only professionals like editors and professors, who got paid to deal with parts the public properly never saw, needed to put up with manuscripts. > > Word processing since those days has striven to become ever closer to final product so that the work of cooking the books diminishes. This is a good thing. You can find a non-proportional font like Courier if you choose to subject yourself to it, but why would you? If you start with a proportional font you have an infinitely more readable product, even in its raw state. Those who think otherwise probably don’t want their doctors to wash their hands before operations either. > > This argument was over decades ago, pre-computer, when electronic typewriters appeared. I got mine literally more than half my life ago, which is a long, long time. How can we be still talking about it? Because double-space looks better. But I’m not going to write using a typewriter just so I can justify (heh) my usage of better looking text. So of course I’ll use the more readable and more attractive option when typing on a computer, too. It’s just a shame I can’t have double spaces on the Dope. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-space-after-a-period/852708/43 "2020-04-29T13:55:41Z")
> [@Hermitian](#): > > I agree. > > Now the Oxford comma, that is something to get appropriately heated about. Also the semi-colon. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-space-after-a-period/852708/44 "2020-04-29T13:58:00Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > LibreOffice is more of a business program than a typesetting program in my experience. Yes, my point is that the vast, vast majority of what people type will never see a typesetter so the whole “But the typesetter…” or “but InDesign…” thing is moot. Unless you are writing specifically for something to be laid out and published, it doesn’t matter. A 0.05% fringe case shouldn’t have any impact on everyone else. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-space-after-a-period/852708/45 "2020-04-29T14:00:00Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Will there be some exceptions? Probably. Poetry, maybe. Attractively typeset prose _is_ poetry. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-space-after-a-period/852708/46 "2020-04-29T15:14:29Z")
The rules about spacing is what it’s always been. Two spaces when using monospaced fonts. One space when using proportional fonts. The only change is the most people use proportional fonts (like Times Roman). ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-space-after-a-period/852708/47 "2020-04-29T15:57:18Z")
I will never stop double spacing after a period. This is the way it should be and the way it looks better. ---
**Author:** ![divemaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/divemaster/32/78_2.png) [@divemaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/divemaster)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-space-after-a-period/852708/48 "2020-04-29T16:05:02Z")
The agency I work for calls for double spacing for all written documents–memos, letters, public notices–all the way up to 1,000-page-long environmental impact statements. Font is Times New Roman, either 11/12/13 point depending on the document. We type in MS Word; some docs stay that way; most are converted to pdf. I’m not sure where the “automatically convert” talk comes in, because the spacing is pretty obvious in all our documents: the spacing after the end of a sentence is greater than between words, after abbreviations, etc. I like it that way. It looks better to my eyes. I think I’d have to quit if they mandated no double space. My fingers automatically type it. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-space-after-a-period/852708/49 "2020-04-29T16:05:38Z")
Agree that most people never have to deal with book layout or typesetting, and my take on all this is that _we shouldn’t try to force them._ Hence why I think Word is broken in this regard: the output should be the same no matter how many spaces the business person types, and the default settings should automatically come out OK, even if unrefined. > [@RealityChuck](#): > > The rules about spacing is what it’s always been. > > Two spaces when using monospaced fonts. > One space when using proportional fonts. > > The only change is the most people use proportional fonts (like Times Roman). Aren’t we trying to deconstruct this myth? If anything, I see evidence that, to the extent we are given explicit “rules”, they have been changing. [this page](http://widespacer.blogspot.com/2014/03/one-or-two-spaces-after-period-how.html) has many good images of different typefaces, proportional as well as fixed, and even handwriting, with wide spacing. He or she also proposes some theories about the evolving rules, like that you couldn’t press the space bar twice on a Linotype machine. To really get to the bottom of this issue, though, we need to ask what is the intended optical effect and how to achieve it. (If there is a generic answer, even Word and web browsers ought to be able to implement it.) ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-space-after-a-period/852708/50 "2020-04-29T16:13:56Z")
It doesn’t matter to me, since I haven’t written a paper that would require a period double space since college. Also, I think with the advent of the internet, people are plenty used to single spaces after a period. I think it probably should be an option to turn off the “error” though. ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-space-after-a-period/852708/51 "2020-04-29T16:18:38Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > Yes, my point is that the vast, vast majority of what people type will never see a typesetter . . . But the vast majority of what people _ **read** _ will see a ‘typesetter’. There is a reason that newspapers, magazines, and most books use the single space – it’s more readable. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-space-after-a-period/852708/52 "2020-04-29T16:34:26Z")
If there be a statistically significant effect on legibility either way, that would be interesting, but what is the citation? Another thing, why were (some) French presses doing things differently? And how about Russia? ---
**Author:** ![Die\_Capacitrix](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/die_capacitrix/32/9_2.png) [@Die\_Capacitrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Die_Capacitrix)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2020, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-space-after-a-period/852708/53 "2020-05-02T06:46:47Z")
> [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](#): > > … > > Note that the great thing about InDesign is that you can set it to automatically adjust for “no rivers.” If you don’t know what that means I would sincerely advise you not to look it up, and the same with kerning. Because once you know what it is you can’t unsee it. I already knew about kerning. And I know there is a name for something which I’ve noticed before. It’s rare to see rivers in text, but sometimes they standout. > [@RealityChuck](#): > > The rules about spacing is what it’s always been. > > Two spaces when using monospaced fonts. > One space when using proportional fonts. > > The only change is the most people use proportional fonts (like Times Roman). The only reason I even use a monospaced font is to represent a text from a seven-segment display. Which itself is becoming a dinosaur. There are so many good fonts to choose from, why use monospaced unless it’s really necessary? Stopped using two spaces after a period when I started using HTML. They are not needed and do interrupt the flow. Semicolons can die. Few people know how to use them properly. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2020, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-space-after-a-period/852708/54 "2020-05-02T10:24:17Z")
> [@Die\_Capacitrix](#): > > I already knew about kerning. And I know there is a name for something which I’ve noticed before. It’s rare to see rivers in text, but sometimes they standout. Good typography is typography you do not notice, that does not stand out or interrupt the flow. That seems like a good rule of thumb for the spacing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-space-after-a-period/852708.md?page=2)