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Two-spacing is from the era of typewriters. Typerwriters had monospaced typefaces because of how they operated. One space didn't work well enough if the period

Two-spacing is from the era of typewriters. Typerwriters had monospaced typefaces because of how they operated. One space didn't work well enough if the period is rendered center of the type block. To work visually for prose, you'd have had to shift it leftwards so it hugs up against the end of a sentence, leaving a wider gap afterwards. But then you'd end up with awkward decimal points for numbers.... so instead we decided to just use two spaces instead. So, it's obviously fine to two-space if you're using a typewriter. It's therefor also fine if you're writing in a monospace/fixed-width font. But don't do it with proportional width fonts! They are designed with various hints in place to render appropriately as one should typeset them, adjusting spacing between various letters, and of course rendering periods and decimal points correctly, contextually! HTML will also ignore extra spaces, accordingly. Word processors will either highlight consecutive spaces as a typo or even auto-correct as you type. So I guess not much worry here if it's a habit.

lisper 4y ago
I beg to differ. Computers should serve humans, not the other way around. Humans should not be burdened with the cognitive load of having to worry about different rules for typing depending on what font they are using. Besides, the same text can be rendered in different fonts at different times. The Right Answer here is for the software that renders text to do the Right Thing no matter how many spaces the user types after a period. HTML already does this so there is an existence proof that this is possible.
cakoose 4y ago
> It's therefor also fine if you're writing in a monospace/fixed-width font. This is the standard explanation I see everywhere, but I don't get it. With two spaces, the gap after a period is longer than a gap after a comma. Why is that "obviously fine" in fixed-width but not in variable-width?
- lamontcg 4y ago
  > With two spaces, the gap after a period is longer than a gap after a comma. As it should be. A period is a full stop, not a continuation.
lamontcg 4y ago
> It's therefor also fine if you're writing in a monospace/fixed-width font. It seems like it is actually correct if you're using a fixed-width font by that rationale. > HTML will also ignore extra spaces, accordingly. Word processors will either highlight consecutive spaces as a typo or even auto-correct as you type. This seems like the best solution and just make technology eat the extra space one way or another so it never matters. So in summary: always double space after a period and let the presentation layer determine the layout. Glad that is finally sorted.
Ferret7446 4y ago
> They are designed with various hints in place to render appropriately That's wrong. Other than LaTeX, nothing else that I know of typesets the space following periods correctly. Not browsers, not word processors. Here's an easy test: Does it put more space after a sentence ending period than after a "Mr."?
- KolenCh 4y ago
  Answer to this probably is just to use different kind of space such as non-breaking space. While LaTeX has good typography, it's really not the only game in town, and not the only tool that can achieve proper typesetting. I'd argue it is easier to learn proper typesetting using LaTeX, but other softwares, even Word, can achieve good typography if you understand the subject and software well.

lisper 4y ago

I beg to differ. Computers should serve humans, not the other way around. Humans should not be burdened with the cognitive load of having to worry about different rules for typing depending on what font they are using. Besides, the same text can be rendered in different fonts at different times. The Right Answer here is for the software that renders text to do the Right Thing no matter how many spaces the user types after a period. HTML already does this so there is an existence proof that this is possible.

cakoose 4y ago

> It's therefor also fine if you're writing in a monospace/fixed-width font. This is the standard explanation I see everywhere, but I don't get it. With two spaces, the gap after a period is longer than a gap after a comma. Why is that "obviously fine" in fixed-width but not in variable-width?

lamontcg 4y ago
> With two spaces, the gap after a period is longer than a gap after a comma. As it should be. A period is a full stop, not a continuation.

lamontcg 4y ago

> It's therefor also fine if you're writing in a monospace/fixed-width font. It seems like it is actually correct if you're using a fixed-width font by that rationale. > HTML will also ignore extra spaces, accordingly. Word processors will either highlight consecutive spaces as a typo or even auto-correct as you type. This seems like the best solution and just make technology eat the extra space one way or another so it never matters. So in summary: always double space after a period and let the presentation layer determine the layout. Glad that is finally sorted.

Ferret7446 4y ago

> They are designed with various hints in place to render appropriately That's wrong. Other than LaTeX, nothing else that I know of typesets the space following periods correctly. Not browsers, not word processors. Here's an easy test: Does it put more space after a sentence ending period than after a "Mr."?

KolenCh 4y ago
Answer to this probably is just to use different kind of space such as non-breaking space. While LaTeX has good typography, it's really not the only game in town, and not the only tool that can achieve proper typesetting. I'd argue it is easier to learn proper typesetting using LaTeX, but other softwares, even Word, can achieve good typography if you understand the subject and software well.