# How many spaces between sentences?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-spaces-between-sentences/554703>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [September 22, 2010, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-spaces-between-sentences/554703 "2010-09-22T21:36:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 108

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-spaces-between-sentences/554703/108 "2010-09-24T18:24:18Z")

</div>

> [@gotpasswords](#):
>
> There’s a nice little reference book on how to make that leap from typing to typography that came out about 20 years ago. The title sums it up nicely:
> 
> [The Mac is Not a Typewriter](http://www.amazon.com/Mac-not-typewriter-Robin-Williams/dp/0201782634)
> 
> Buy it. Read it. Learn it. Love it.
> 
> Maybe, just maybe, if you get this book, you’ll not only drop that vulgar habit of double-spacing between sentences, but you’ll develop a yearning to do some kerning, you won’t be so afraid of white space, and you’ll never leave a hanging orphan again.

Adapted from this same book:

[**One space between sentences**](http://www.westminster.edu/staff/nak/courses/spaces.htm)

(I’ve been linking to this page for nearly a decade now in threads like these. I actually read it first in _The Mac Is Not a Typewriter_, by Robin Williams, 1990.)

From one of the previous [threads](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=513861) on this topic:

> [@What's Up With People Still Double-Spacing After a Period](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-people-still-double-spacing-after-a-period/492858/82):
>
> …IMHO, two spaces between sentences doesn’t look better or enhance clarity, which is probably why virtually every bit of **typeset** print that everyone here has ever read in their lives only has a single space between sentences. Look at any professionally-produced magazine or book if you don’t believe me.
> 
> You only see two spaces in monospaced, typed documents and word-processed documents by people who still think that the modern word processor is a typewriter.

---

_[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-spaces-between-sentences/554703)._