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Subject:RE: To Space or not to Space From:"Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:04 May 2004 00:08:52 GMT
Unfortunately, the anwer is (surprise, surprise), "it
depends." If you're using a monospaced font, then two
spaces between sentences is still widely recommended
due to the uneven whitespace between symbols of varying
widths. If you're composing for the web, unless you
hard code the extra space in at every use, your second
space will be eliminated automatically anyway, so why
bother. In between, there is a continuing debate between
those who maintain the double space is an anachronism
because modern word processors adjust the spacing after
a period automatically and a small but actually *growing*
number of holdouts who maintain that an extra space at
the end of a sentence improves readability and helps
provide a clearer break between sentences. There is,
of course, no scientific data to be found supporting
either opinion, so for most of us who are writing for
short-run printing on things like Xerox DocuTech, it's
pretty much a matter of preference and style guide.
In most publishing (as in books) work, manuscripts are
still created by writers using double spaces and the
"extra" space is deleted by the page designer, final
editor or typesetter.
As you may notice from my posts, I'm a two-spacer,
especially in email where I have no idea what font
you're going to be using at your end. But for jobs
where the style guide calls for one, it's easy
enough for me to type as I please and then do a
search-and-destroy on the second space at the end
of the project.
Gene Kim-Eng
------- Original Message -------
On Mon, 3 May 2004 16:50:00 -0400 (EDT) tom -dot- green -at- iwon -dot- com wrote:
I have searched every combination I could in the archives and did not get an answer so I will put this forth to you. I thought the old way of writing that we were taught in school, to always do two spaces after a period, had gone away in favor of one space. Now, I see in the "Style Guide" at my work, it says to "always place two spaces after a period." I am now confused (which is not hard to do). Which is it? Two spaces or one? Does it really matter?
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