How many spaces after a period?

WWWalt said:

Heraclitean River wrote an impeccably researched and entertainingly acerbic diatribe that thoroughly debunks the typewriter origin myth.

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Is that your blog, Walt?

WWWalt said:

No part of it is; it is the statement as a whole that is a myth.

Your overall claim, in essence, is that sentence spacing is based on the category of typeface: monospaced or proportional. This is historically inaccurate; in fact, sentence spacing has depended largely upon the era in which the material was typeset.

The Wikipedia article has more information on the topic.



Your claim that "the period [in proportional typefaces] already has 'extra' space associated with it" is contradicted by both the blog post (see the second paragraph under "The Situation Today") and common sense: you would not want your period glyph to have extra space after it, because that would mess up the typography of a period followed by a closing quotation mark--a pretty common character combination--or a period that falls at the end of a line in fully justified text.

In any case, all this typesetting lore is of only tangential relevance to the original query, which was about how to space sentences when writing. By the time one gets to the typesetting stage, one is no longer concerned with "number of spaces" but with the width of space, typically expressed in fractions of ems.

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The wikipedia article is not especially accurate. There are parts of it that are accurate, but other parts are not.

WWWalt said:

No part of it is; it is the statement as a whole that is a myth.

Your overall claim, in essence, is that sentence spacing is based on the category of typeface: monospaced or proportional. This is historically inaccurate; in fact, sentence spacing has depended largely upon the era in which the material was typeset.

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This is a silly assertion. That isn't what I'm claiming. I'm discussing modern digital type, since it's the reasonable response to the OP who is not inquiring about setting cold type, or even Lino.

First, dragging historic practices into the discussion is daft; spaces weren't even used originally between words or at the ends of sentences in texts. They were added as a aid to monks who were less than proficient in Latin and Greek and were reading aloud. Then as now, spacing was a usability issue.

Secondly, the distinction between monospaced and proportionately spaced type is largely a modern one, related to the ability to accurately mass produce type for mass produced factory built printers, generally, Linotype and later. It's a useful distinction for a writer using a digital font on a computer.

Thirdly, in a full face in postscript there are kerning pairs for all sorts of punctuation, including terminal punctuation, and a good typesetter will both kern and track, and yes, especially when terminal punctuation involves a quotation mark.

Fourth, if you actually produce a sample paragraph both with two spaces and with one after terminal punctuation and print it on a laserprinter at 1200 dpi or better using postscript versions of a monospaced face like Courier and a proportionately spaced face like Palatino or Goudy Old Style, you can see the difference yourself.

Fifth comparing pre 1900 or so printing is completely pointless; we didn't even have the same typefaces!

The use of the typewriter changed the way people produced text, and meant that typesetters no longer were involved in all printed material. When typewriters became mass produced and affordable, their use spread rapidly to offices and to writers themselves. The writer was the one setting the type for the initial ms.

Monspaced type was created specifically (in terms of Europe and North America, vs Asia) for typewriters to make striking keys on the paper and mass-production of the type elements easier.

People began taking typing in school as a class. That meant standardization of practices, so what was a philosophical/design decision became rule-based, much like the mostly lost distinctions about Pica and Elite.

But you really can't compare early printed books and practices with modern ones; the faces aren't even the same.

Courier was created for IBM for use in multi-strike devices aka typewriters in 1955

Goudy Old Style is 1915
Janson 1919/1937
Times New Roman 1932
Palatino (Zapf) 1948
Optima c. 1955
Minion is 1990
Georgia is 1993
Zaphino 1998

Now when you get to more specialized faces like Zapifnio, the variety of ligatures and kerning pairs that are pre-set is much larger than even other modern faces, and yes, that includes fine discrimination about terminal punctuations, but it's a calligraphic face.

If you use a type tool like Fontographer or TypeTool and look at the font metrics you can actually see the math and by gosh and by golly, there's extra space around some characters including periods in proportionately spaced fonts. That's the proportionate part; some characters are wider than others.

Again, the original question was which was "correct," one space or two, and as I've indicated, the standard is typically one space after terminal punctuation with a monospaced face and two after a proportionately spaced face.

When the ms. lands in front of a typesetter, said typesetter will of course use his or her judgement about kerning and tracking, and which glyphs to use when.

That's always been the case; typesetters and earlier, printers, use their own judgement in setting type, to the point where scholars use a Hinman collator to compare early printed editions to determine which individual copies were printed when. One of the characteristics you learn to check is in fact terminal spacing, because then as now, terminal spacing is a great way to gain or lose a line with a little care.

As an additional piece of trivia, one reason many editors preferred Courier and two spaces was that it was easier to do cast-off with a monospaced face, and the additional space made it easier to mark up the hardcopy with proofers/editors/typesetter's marks.

This convention is going away as more and more submissions are read and edited digitally, and mss. don't spend nearly as much time pre-print in hardcopy as they used to.

Bottom line as with most things of this sort:

1. Do whatever the editor or publisher prefers in submission.
2. The general guidline is two space for monospace, one for proportionately spaced, but no one is going to throw your ms. in the fire for using the "wrong" sentence spacing.
3. It's better to standardize than to use both, so pick one and be consistent, because either one is dead easy to change.

AW Admin said:

That's always been the case; typesetters and earlier, printers, use their own judgement in setting type, to the point where scholars use a Hinman collator to compare early printed editions to determine which individual copies were printed when. One of the characteristics you learn to check is in fact terminal spacing, because then as now, terminal spacing is a great way to gain or lose a line with a little care.

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I have, in point of fact, done this very thing with lead type. (Though we call it lead type, the thinner spacers are often brass or copper, because they bend rather than break.)

growingupblessings said:

Are you using one or two spaces?

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One. It was surprisingly easy to break the two-spaces habit.

Old Hack said:

Is that your blog, Walt?

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No, I don't have that kind of focus. I once started a blog and made all of two posts before I decided I didn't have enough interesting things to say... a point I'm sure anyone following this thread will readily concede.

King Neptune said:

The wikipedia article is not especially accurate. There are parts of it that are accurate, but other parts are not.

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Which parts are inaccurate?

AW Admin said:

This is a silly assertion. That isn't what I'm claiming.

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I stand corrected.

If you use a type tool like Fontographer or TypeTool and look at the font metrics you can actually see the math and by gosh and by golly, there's extra space around some characters including periods in proportionately spaced fonts.

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This has nothing to do with sentence spacing; font metrics cannot identify the semantic purpose of a period.

Again, the original question was which was "correct," one space or two, and as I've indicated, the standard is typically one space after terminal punctuation with a monospaced face and two after a proportionately spaced face.

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Who advocates this as a standard? And what, in the process of composition, does it even mean? I'm just typing characters on a keyboard; what typeface they eventually get displayed in is a decision that may not be made until much later. But I'm still writing sentences, and I still have to put some number of spaces between them. For a question on the process of composition, an answer based on a presentational matter seems just as wrong-headed as my sidetrack into historical practice.

It's better to standardize than to use both, so pick one and be consistent, because either one is dead easy to change.

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I would like to see what "dead easy" search pattern you use to correctly change sentence spacing throughout a manuscript from single to double. Going the other way is dead easy, which is why, when in doubt, it makes more sense to compose using two sentence spaces.

WWWalt said:

Who advocates this as a standard?

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I don't know who started the conventions, but it's been standard for as long as I've worked in publishing, which is (blimey!) more than thirty years now.

And what, in the process of composition, does it even mean? I'm just typing characters on a keyboard; what typeface they eventually get displayed in is a decision that may not be made until much later. But I'm still writing sentences, and I still have to put some number of spaces between them. For a question on the process of composition, an answer based on a presentational matter seems just as wrong-headed as my sidetrack into historical practice.

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Your use of "composition" threw me a bit here because in publishing, "composition" is a term which refers to typesetting text, not writing it. You need to be specific and precise when talking about these things.

I shall assume that you are referring to writing text here, and not to composing it. If I've got that wrong, ignore what follows.

When you're writing your stuff, put however many spaces after your full stop as you like.

You can use one, two, or three hundred and forty seven. It doesn't matter. Just make sure you restrict yourself to no more than one or two in the version you send of to agents and editors (find and replace is a wonderful thing); and be consistent in that number.

No agent is going to reject your work because you used the wrong number of spaces after a full stop. This is not worth worrying about at this stage. It only becomes important at typesetting (or composition) stage, and at that point it is not your concern.

WWWalt said:

I would like to see what "dead easy" search pattern you use to correctly change sentence spacing throughout a manuscript from single to double.

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This is indeed dead easy. Do a F+R for "._" and replace with "._ _"

Then do a F+R to correct your ellipses.

(underscore standing in for space because the forum won't let me double space)

Old Hack said:

Your use of "composition" threw me a bit here because in publishing, "composition" is a term which refers to typesetting text, not writing it. You need to be specific and precise when talking about these things.

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Yes, that was a poor word choice. I did mean "writing."

slhuang said:

This is indeed dead easy. Do a F+R for "._" and replace with "._ _"

Then do a F+R to correct your ellipses.

(underscore standing in for space because the forum won't let me double space)

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At which point you've missed all instances of sentences ending in question marks, quotation marks, or any other forms of punctuation; and incorrectly put extra space after midsentence abbreviations. This is why I asked for both "easy" and "correct"

WWWalt said:

At which point you've missed all instances of sentences ending in question marks, quotation marks, or any other forms of punctuation; and incorrectly put extra space after midsentence abbreviations. This is why I asked for both "easy" and "correct"

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So you just repeat the exercise for question marks, quotation marks, and so on.

I've done it. It doesn't take much time.

http://absolutewrite.com//www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/

I thought I'd never be able to break myself of the two spaces after a period habit. Then my editor made me fix it in my manuscript. Yes, I used the find/replace feature, but since I was required to keep the "track changes" on, I had to accept every single space fixing. There were over 8,600, I buckled down and got it done in 24 hours, and I'm now totally reformed. I don't think I've hit the space bar twice since.

Old Hack said:

So you just repeat the exercise for question marks, quotation marks, and so on.

I've done it. It doesn't take much time.

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I routinely run a search/replace for two spaces, turning them into a single space. I never have any reason for two spaces in a manuscript, aside from the occasional mistype after a punctuation symbol, that a lingering courtesy of my eighth-grade typing class waaaaaay back.

caw

Old Hack said:

No agent is going to reject your work because you used the wrong number of spaces after a full stop. This is not worth worrying about at this stage. It only becomes important at typesetting (or composition) stage, and at that point it is not your concern.

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Yep.

Moreover typesetters have all manner of utilities and we know how to use GREP.

Just pick one.

AWL TEH SPACEZ!................................................Like this.

Old Hack said:

So you just repeat the exercise for question marks, quotation marks, and so on.

I've done it. It doesn't take much time.

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Also, Microsoft Word, in the near-infinite wisdom of Microsoft (most likely that Simonyi guy) includes a "macro language" called Visual Basic. You can write a few commands to do all these things and save it to run again later. It's not quite that simple, you do have to Learn Something, but it's not really bad as those things go.

Kay said:

I thought I'd never be able to break myself of the two spaces after a period habit. Then my editor made me fix it in my manuscript. Yes, I used the find/replace feature, but since I was required to keep the "track changes" on, I had to accept every single space fixing. There were over 8,600, I buckled down and got it done in 24 hours, and I'm now totally reformed. I don't think I've hit the space bar twice since.

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I wonder if the track-changes feature would have counted running the VB macro as "one change."

benbradley said:

I wonder if the track-changes feature would have counted running the VB macro as "one change."

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Unlikely - try it by hand and you see that Track Changes sees one global Replace as however many individual changes to words, each of which can be rejected or accepted individually.

I agree with only 1 space in digital typing.

But how many spaces after a period if I'm handwriting text?

DavidMivshek said:

I agree with only 1 space in digital typing.

But how many spaces after a period if I'm handwriting text?

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1.6342 precisely. Please don't get it wrong. It's terribly important.

evilrooster said:

1.6342 precisely. Please don't get it wrong. It's terribly important.

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I believe you meant 1.732050808.

Two, darn it. Two. You can pry my two spaces out of my cold, dead fingers.

Except on Twitter, then it's one if I'm being eloquent.


Also what Old Hack said. This is not a Thing to Worry About.

I use my digits for handwriting.

King Neptune said:

I believe you meant 1.732050808.

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That's in pica.