Re: What is wrong with white space?

[William Swallow <WSWALLOW -at- COMMSOFT -dot- NET>]

Most fonts these days are not set-width. The auto-kerning often
misrepresents a double-space after a period - the size of the spaces will
differ depending on the leading character of the next sentence.

The white space in this example:
blah.[][]W
will be different from this example:
blah.[][]I
and so on...

This is why the single-space is widely-adopted these days; it's cleaner. The
auto-kern allows for enough white space with only one space after a period.

Sure, the convention started in scientific documentation years ago and my
explanation is rather raw, but I don't think that this topic is worthy of a
lengthy discussion. I'm sure there's a Web site out there somewhere...

Bill Swallow
Technical Writer
Aptis
a subsidiary of Billing Concepts
Albany NY
(518) 433-7698
mailto:wswallow -at- commsoft -dot- net
http://www.aptissoftware.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bev Lockhart [SMTP:bl -at- SEATTLELAB -dot- COM]
> Sent: Monday, July 26, 1999 6:30 PM
> Subject:      What is wrong with white space?
>
> They changed the rules in between the time I was a newspaper editor and
> became a technical editor.
>
> White space USED to be considered a good thing.
>
> Who are the doc design gurus, and how did they decide upon "the rules"?
>
>
> Bev Lockhart
> Documentation Editor
>
> Seattle Lab, Inc.                               PHONE:  (425) 825-7012
> 11730-118th Ave. NE                     FAX:  (425) 825-7013
> Ste. 400
> Kirkland, WA  98034-7120
>
> mail to: bl -at- seattlelab -dot- com
> http://www.seattlelab.com

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