One space after a period

Published 5/14/09

I appreciate the fact that you learned to type on a typewriter. So did I. But that was then. Today we use word processors, so the age-old tradition of putting two spaces after a period is over. Over. One space.

Thank you.

The Fray

4 responses (add yours)

Leland says:

One space…

And only one space…

There can only be one space…

For it is the final frontier…

Now I’m going to reboot my IBM Selectric because the number keys keep making punctuation marks.

May 14th, 2009 at 12:38 PM

gnomic says:

Are suggesting that punctuation has reached menopause?

May 14th, 2009 at 9:45 PM

Tom Landgraf says:

I learned to type on a Selectric and will continue to 2 spaces after a period. I think it helps readability by adding some additional white space between sentences. (Isn’t that one of the golden rules for an easy to read page?)

The only case that can be made for using 1 space after any punctuation is when you know the final layout will use a proportional font. As a matter of fact, I note that the text box I’m using to create this note uses fixed-font Courier type.

May 17th, 2009 at 7:57 PM