I’m using Word Perfect version 12 here at work, and it automatically capitalizes any letter that appears after a period and a space, incorrectly thinking it’s the start of a new sentence. Does anyone know how to turn this off? I haven’t had any luck doing so. I’m sure I could figure it out if I spent a couple hours researching it, but I was hoping someone might know off-hand.
The really asinine thing about it is that there are TWO spaces between sentences, yet it automatically capitalizes after ONE space, so something like “Microsoft, Inc. v. Doe” becomes Microsoft, Inc. V. Doe". :smack:
The Autocorrect, or Quickcorrect, feature inserts corrections
automatically as you type your text. Sometimes the corrections are what
you intended, but sometimes this is not the case.
TO ENABLE/DISABLE QUICKCORRECT:
Go to the Edit menu and select Preferences.
Uncheck (or check) the box that says “enable Quickcorrect.”
As a graphic designer and one-time professional typesetter (before do-it-yourself desktop publishing), I can confirm that the convention of putting two wordspaces after the end of a sentence is from the days of typwriters with monospaced lettering (each character, from “i” to “W” takes up the same amount of horizontal space). With computer-generated scaled fonts, you only need to put one space between sentences. (This is one of my pet peeves; not so much in e-mails, etc., but when I see a professionally published book set like this, I get really annoyed.)
Wait, what does ‘you only need’ mean? Do you mean it’s now wrong to put two spaces after a period, or do you mean now, one space is ok, and two spaces is still ok as well? Can someone clarify once & for all, what is correct in today’s business and technical writing?? And how many spaces after a semi-colon, and how many after a colon?
And why would the usage of computers for word processing change the rule?? It doesn’t make sense to me. Whether you’re using fixed-space fonts on a typewriter or using Times New Roman on Word, why would simply using a non fixed-width font change how many spaces appear after a period?
And if you’re gonna change the rule, it would seem the backwards would be the new rule: that with non-fixed width fonts, you need 2 spaces after the period to make sentences look more clearly separated. Huh.
Sorry, I should have been clearer. With scaled fonts, only one space between sentences, after colons and semi-colons, ever. I think the thinking is that with monospaced fonts, the spacing of the lettering within words tends to be loose and uneven, so an extra space between sentences aids legibility. In computer type, kerning makes the spacing more uniform and legible, so no need for extra space between sentences. If you look at older printed material that was set using either linotype machines or hand-set with individual molded letters, there is a single space at the end of sentences. Computer-set type follows these conventions, for the most part.