Re: To Space or not to Space

["Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>]

I have asked some of my users about this a few times over
the years (usually because the subject has come up yet again
on some forum or another, so it's a highly unscientific poll).
As I have said previously, most users don't even notice the
difference until I point it out to them.  After that, most say
it doesn't matter.  A few say it makes the distinction between
one sentence and another clearer and that they prefer it (this is
a common opinion offered by readers over the age of 50 or so).  
None has ever told me that a wider space between sentences 
bothers them.  The print vendors I work with all produce printed
manuals that duplicate the formatting of the PDFs I send them,
so they don't care.  Even the few typesetters I've worked with 
over the years shrug it off because they're accustomed to 
manually adjusting the formatting during the process of 
preparing a manuscript for press as a matter of routine.
The only people who have objected to a double space at the
end of a sentence were all writers and editors.

Gene Kim-Eng




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ned Bedinger" <doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2004 4:15 PM
Subject: Re: To Space or not to Space


> 
> Well, yeah.  But this was a sophisticated reader whose
> trained eye had once been employed at MIT Press.  The
> comment I received was that the pages were visually
> distracting because "the eye" sees stark rivers of white
> flowing down the page through the two-space gaps between
> sentences. I see it too, now that I know.  I'm not so sure
> it isn't a distraction, at a subconcious level, for most
> readers.  It is just one of those things, like font
> selection, that takes the individual's qualitative opinions
> and some scientific study to ever become a quantifiable
> parameter of readability.
> 
> But no, no average readers.
> 
> My $20 worth.





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