French spacing
Encyclopedia
Sentence spacing is the horizontal space
between sentences in typeset text
. It is a matter of typographical convention
. Since the introduction of movable-type
printing in Europe, various sentence spacing conventions have been used in languages with a Latin-derived alphabet. These include a normal word space (as between the words in a sentence), a single enlarged space
, two full spaces, and, most recently in digital media
, no space. Although modern digital font
s can automatically adjust a single word space to create visually pleasing and consistent spacing following terminal punctuation
, most debate is about whether to strike a keyboard
's spacebar once or twice between sentences.
Until the 20th century, publishing houses and printers in many countries used single, but enlarged, spaces between sentences. There were exceptions to this traditional spacing method—printers in some countries preferred single spacing. This was French spacing—a term synonymous with single space sentence spacing until the late 20th century. Double spacing, or placing two spaces between sentences (sometimes referred to as English spacing), came into widespread use with the introduction of the typewriter
in the late 19th century. It was felt that with the monospaced font used by a typewriter, "a single word space ... was not wide enough to create a sufficient space between sentences" and that extra space might help signal the end of a sentence. This caused a widespread change in practice. From the late 19th century, printers were told to ignore their typesetting manuals in favor of typewriter spacing; Monotype
and Linotype
operators used double sentence spacing and this was widely taught in typing classes.
With the introduction of proportional fonts in computer
s, double sentence spacing became obsolete, according to many experts. These proportional fonts now assign appropriate horizontal space to each character (including punctuation marks), and typesetting programs such as TeX
can modify kerning
values to adjust spaces following terminal punctuation
, so there is less need to increase spacing manually between sentences. From around 1950, single sentence spacing became standard in books, magazines and newspapers. Regardless, many still believe that double spaces are correct. The debate continues, notably on the World Wide Web
—as many people use search engines to try to find what is correct. Many people prefer double sentence spacing for informal use because that was how they were taught to type. There is a debate on which convention is more readable
, but the few recent direct studies conducted since 2002 have produced inconclusive results.
Most modern literature on typography
says that double spacing is wrong, but some non-typographical sources indicate that it could be used on a typewriter or with a monospaced font. The majority of style guides opt for a single space after terminal punctuation for final and published work, with a few permitting double spacing in draft manuscripts and for specific circumstances based on personal preference. Grammar and design guides, including Web design guides, provide similar guidance.
-spaced, and that words should be 1/3 or 1/2 em-spaced (illustration right). Only a single type block was typically used, which resulted in the appearance of about a double word space between sentences. For most countries, this remained the standard for published work until the 20th century. Yet, even in this period, there were publishing houses (notably in France) that used a standard word space between sentences—a technique called French spacing (illustration below).
Technological advances began affecting sentence spacing methods. In 1941, IBM
introduced the Executive, a typewriter capable of proportional spacing—which had been used in professional typesetting for hundreds of years. This innovation broke the hold that the monospaced font had on the typewriter—reducing the severity of its mechanical limitations. "By the 1960s, electronic phototypesetting systems" ignored runs of white space in text, a feature that reappeared on the World Wide Web, as HTML ignores additional spacing. Computers offered additional sentence spacing tools for the average writer, and the double spacing convention, "as a standard operating procedure ... went out with the IBM Selectric". By the late 20th century, literature on the written word had begun to adjust its guidance on sentence spacing.
(the "arrangement and appearance of text") supported traditional spacing techniques in English publications. In 1954, Geoffrey Dowding's book, Finer Points in the Spacing and Arrangement of Type, underscored the widespread shift from a single enlarged em space to a standard word space between sentences.
With the advent of the computer age, typographers began deprecating
double spacing, even in monospaced text. In 1989, Desktop Publishing by Design stated that "typesetting
requires only one space after periods, question marks, exclamation points, and colons", and identified single sentence spacing as a typographic convention. Stop Stealing Sheep & Find Out How Type Works (1993) and Designing with Type: The Essential Guide to Typography (2006) both indicate that uniform spacing should be used between words, including between sentences.
More recent works on typography weigh in strongly. Ilene Strizver, founder of the Type Studio, says, "Forget about tolerating differences of opinion: typographically speaking, typing two spaces before the start of a new sentence is absolutely, unequivocally wrong." The Complete Manual on Typography (2003) states that "The typewriter tradition of separating sentences with two word spaces after a period has no place in typesetting" and the single space is "standard typographic practice". The Elements of Typographic Style (2004) advocates a single space between sentences, noting that "your typing as well as your typesetting will benefit from unlearning this quaint [double spacing] Victorian habit."
David Jury's book, About Face: Reviving the Rules of Typography (2004)—published in Switzerland—clarifies the contemporary typographic position on sentence spacing:
s for typesetting used a wider space between sentences than between words— "traditional spacing," as shown in the illustration to the right. During the 20th century, style guides commonly mandated two spaces between sentences for typewritten manuscripts, which were used prior to professionally typesetting the work. As computer desktop publishing
became commonplace, typewritten manuscripts became less relevant and most style guides stopped making distinctions between manuscripts and final typeset products. In the same period, style guides began changing their guidance on sentence spacing. The 1969 edition of the Chicago Manual of Style used em spaces between sentences in its text; by the 2003 edition it had changed to single sentence spacing for both manuscript and print. By the 1980s, the United Kingdom's Hart's Rules (1983) had shifted to single sentence spacing. Other style guides followed suit in the 1990s. Soon after the beginning of the 21st century, the majority of style guides had changed to indicate that only one word space was proper between sentences.
Modern style guides provide standards and guidance for the written language. These works are important to writers since "virtually all professional editors work closely with one of them in editing a manuscript for publication." Late editions of comprehensive style guides, such as the Oxford Style Manual (2003) in the United Kingdom and the Chicago Manual of Style
(2010) in the United States, provide standards for a wide variety of writing and design topics, including sentence spacing. The majority of style guides now prescribe the use of a single space after terminal punctuation in final written works and publications. A few style guides allow double sentence spacing for draft work, and the Gregg Reference Manual makes room for double and single sentence spacing based on author preferences. Web design guides do not usually provide guidance on this topic, as "HTML refuses to recognize double spaces altogether". These works themselves follow the current publication standard of single sentence spacing.
The European Union
's Interinstitutional Style Guide (2008) indicates that single sentence spacing is to be used in all European Union publications—encompassing 23 languages. For the English language, the European Commission
's English Style Guide (2010) states that sentences are always single-spaced. The Style Manual: For Authors, Editors and Printers (2007), first published in 1966 by the Commonwealth Government Printing Office of Australia, stipulates that only one space is used after "sentence-closing punctuation", and that "Programs for word processing and desktop publishing offer more sophisticated, variable spacing, so this practice of double spacing is now avoided because it can create distracting gaps on a page."
National languages not covered by an authoritative language academy typically have multiple style guides—only some of which may discuss sentence spacing. This is the case in the United Kingdom. The Oxford Style Manual (2003) and the Modern Humanities Research Association
's MHRA Style Guide (2002), state that only single spacing should be used. In Canada, both the English and French language sections of the Canadian Style, A Guide to Writing and Editing (1997), prescribe single sentence spacing. In the United States, many style guides—such as the Chicago Manual of Style (2003)—allow only single sentence spacing. The most important style guide in Italy, Il Nuovo Manuale di Stile (2009), does not address sentence spacing, but the Guida di Stile Italiano (2010), the official guide for Microsoft translation, tells users to use single sentence spacing "instead of the double spacing used in the United States".
and Spanish
, have academies that set language rules. Their publications typically address orthography
and grammar as opposed to matters of typography. Style guides are less relevant for such languages
, as their academies set prescriptive rules
. For example, the Académie française
publishes the Dictionnaire de l'Académie française
for French speakers worldwide. The 1992 edition does not provide guidance on sentence spacing, but is single-sentence-spaced throughout—consistent with historical French spacing. The Spanish language is similar. The most important body within the Association of Spanish Language Academies
, the Real Academia Española
, publishes the Diccionario de la Lengua Española
, which is viewed as prescriptive for the Spanish language worldwide. The 2001 edition does not provide sentence spacing guidance, but is itself single sentence spaced. The German language manual Empfehlungen des Rats für Deutsche Rechtschreibung
("Recommendations of the Council for German Orthography") (2006) does not address sentence spacing. The manual itself uses one space after terminal punctuation. Additionally, the Duden
, the German language dictionary most commonly used in Germany, indicates that double sentence spacing is an error.
and the proper construction of sentences—but not the spacing between sentences. Moreover, many modern grammar guides are designed for quick reference and refer users to comprehensive style guide
s for additional matters of writing style. For example, the Pocket Idiot's Guide to Grammar and Punctuation (2005) points users to style guides such as the MLA Style Manual
for consistency in formatting work and for all other "editorial concerns". The Grammar Bible (2004) states that "The modern system of English punctuation is by no means simple. A book that covers all the bases would need to be of considerable breadth and weight and anyone interested in such a resource is advised to consult the Chicago Manual of Style."
, "Grammar Girl
", points out that in the past, typewriting used two spaces—in deference to its monospaced font limitations—but "Now that most writing is done on computers it is no longer necessary to type two spaces after a period at the end of a sentence." She answers the question of "How many spaces?" as follows: "On a typewriter, use two. On a computer, use one." This position highlights the late 20th-century transition from the typewriter to the computer, and its effect on sentence spacing.
Today, computers and digital fonts allow sentence spacing variations not possible with the typewriter. Proportional fonts are widely available to average computer users. Computer-based tools such as proportional fonts, kerning
, computer-based word processors, and software such as TeX
allow users to arrange text in a manner previously only available to professional typesetters. These tools are also available on the World Wide Web, even though single spacing is the convention because of the characteristics of HTML
. Yet, even in the digital age, many school students are still taught to strike the space bar twice between sentences when using computers, contributing to confusion regarding sentence spacing in the 21st century.
The text editing environment in Emacs
uses a double space following a period to identify the end of sentences unambiguously; the double space convention prevents confusion with periods within sentences which signify abbreviations. How Emacs recognizes the end of a sentence is controlled by the settings sentence-end-double-space and sentence-end.
Many people are opposed to single sentence spacing for various reasons. Some state that the habit of double spacing is too deeply ingrained to change. Others claim that additional space between sentences makes text "look better" or easier to read. Proponents of double sentence spacing also state that some publishers may still require double spaced manuscript submissions from authors. A key example noted is the screenwriting industry's monospaced "standard" for screenplay manuscripts, Courier
, 12-point font, although some works on screenwriting indicate that Courier is merely "preferred," and that proportional fonts may be used. Some reliable sources state simply that writers should follow their particular style guide, but proponents of double spacing caution that publisher's guidance takes precedence, including those that ask for double sentence spaced manuscripts.
In opposition to these ideas, many experts state that double sentence spacing was only relevant when faced with the limitations of the typewriter, and is now obsolete for most uses, especially given the capabilities of modern computers and digital fonts. While typewriter users had only two choices (to strike the space bar once or twice), modern proportional fonts allow compositors to manually adjust sentence spacing to thousandths of an inch for visually pleasing typesetting. Some sources state it is also acceptable even for monospaced fonts to be single spaced today, although other references specify double spacing for monospaced fonts. Another opinion is that as terminal punctuation marks the end of a sentence, and additional spacing is itself punctuation, additional spacing is redundant.
The double space typewriter convention was taught in schools in typing classes, and that remains the practice in many cases. Some voice concerns that students will later be forced to relearn how to type. Most style guides indicate that single sentence spacing is proper for final or published work today, and "most publishers" require manuscripts to be submitted as they will appear in publication—single sentence spaced. Writing sources typically recommend that prospective authors remove extra spaces before submitting manuscripts; although other sources state that publishers will use software to remove the spaces before final publication. Finally, some experts state that, while double spacing sentences in unpublished papers and informal use (such as e-mail) might be fine, double sentence spacing in desktop-published (DTP
) works will make the final result look "unprofessional" and "foolish".
of the single and double sentence spacing methods—by proponents on both sides. Supporters of single spacing assert that familiarity with the current standard in books, magazines, and the Web enhances readability, that double spacing looks strange in text using proportional fonts, and that the "rivers
" and "holes" caused by double spacing impair readability. Proponents of double sentence spacing state that the extra space between sentences enhances readability by providing breaks between sentences and makes text appear more legible.
However, typographic opinions are typically anecdotal with no basis in evidence. "Opinions are not always safe guides to legibility of print", and when direct studies are conducted, anecdotal opinions—even those of experts—can turn out to be false. Text that seems legible (visually pleasing at first glance), may be shown to actually impair reading effectiveness when subjected to scientific study.
Space (punctuation)
In writing, a space is a blank area devoid of content, serving to separate words, letters, numbers, and punctuation. Conventions for interword and intersentence spaces vary among languages, and in some cases the spacing rules are quite complex....
between sentences in typeset text
Written language
A written language is the representation of a language by means of a writing system. Written language is an invention in that it must be taught to children, who will instinctively learn or create spoken or gestural languages....
. It is a matter of typographical convention
Convention (norm)
A convention is a set of agreed, stipulated or generally accepted standards, norms, social norms or criteria, often taking the form of a custom....
. Since the introduction of movable-type
Movable type
Movable type is the system of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document ....
printing in Europe, various sentence spacing conventions have been used in languages with a Latin-derived alphabet. These include a normal word space (as between the words in a sentence), a single enlarged space
Space (punctuation)
In writing, a space is a blank area devoid of content, serving to separate words, letters, numbers, and punctuation. Conventions for interword and intersentence spaces vary among languages, and in some cases the spacing rules are quite complex....
, two full spaces, and, most recently in digital media
Digital media
Digital media is a form of electronic media where data is stored in digital form. It can refer to the technical aspect of storage and transmission Digital media is a form of electronic media where data is stored in digital (as opposed to analog) form. It can refer to the technical aspect of...
, no space. Although modern digital font
Font
In typography, a font is traditionally defined as a quantity of sorts composing a complete character set of a single size and style of a particular typeface...
s can automatically adjust a single word space to create visually pleasing and consistent spacing following terminal punctuation
Punctuation
Punctuation marks are symbols that indicate the structure and organization of written language, as well as intonation and pauses to be observed when reading aloud.In written English, punctuation is vital to disambiguate the meaning of sentences...
, most debate is about whether to strike a keyboard
Keyboard (computing)
In computing, a keyboard is a typewriter-style keyboard, which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys, to act as mechanical levers or electronic switches...
's spacebar once or twice between sentences.
Until the 20th century, publishing houses and printers in many countries used single, but enlarged, spaces between sentences. There were exceptions to this traditional spacing method—printers in some countries preferred single spacing. This was French spacing—a term synonymous with single space sentence spacing until the late 20th century. Double spacing, or placing two spaces between sentences (sometimes referred to as English spacing), came into widespread use with the introduction of the typewriter
Typewriter
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the pieces...
in the late 19th century. It was felt that with the monospaced font used by a typewriter, "a single word space ... was not wide enough to create a sufficient space between sentences" and that extra space might help signal the end of a sentence. This caused a widespread change in practice. From the late 19th century, printers were told to ignore their typesetting manuals in favor of typewriter spacing; Monotype
Monotype Corporation
Monotype Imaging Holdings is a Delaware corporation based in Woburn, Massachusetts and specializing in typesetting and typeface design as well as text and imaging solutions for use with consumer electronics devices. Monotype Imaging Holdings is the owner of Monotype Imaging Inc., Linotype,...
and Linotype
Linotype machine
The Linotype typesetting machine is a "line casting" machine used in printing. The name of the machine comes from the fact that it produces an entire line of metal type at once, hence a line-o'-type, a significant improvement over manual typesetting....
operators used double sentence spacing and this was widely taught in typing classes.
With the introduction of proportional fonts in computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
s, double sentence spacing became obsolete, according to many experts. These proportional fonts now assign appropriate horizontal space to each character (including punctuation marks), and typesetting programs such as TeX
TeX
TeX is a typesetting system designed and mostly written by Donald Knuth and released in 1978. Within the typesetting system, its name is formatted as ....
can modify kerning
Kerning
In typography, kerning is the process of adjusting the spacing between characters in a proportional font, usually to achieve a visually pleasing result. Kerning is the adjustment of the space between individual letter forms vs. tracking which is the uniform adjustment of spacing applied over a...
values to adjust spaces following terminal punctuation
Terminal punctuation
Terminal punctuation are punctuation marks used to identify the end of a portion of text. Terminal punctuation marks are also referred to as end marks and stops....
, so there is less need to increase spacing manually between sentences. From around 1950, single sentence spacing became standard in books, magazines and newspapers. Regardless, many still believe that double spaces are correct. The debate continues, notably on the World Wide Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
—as many people use search engines to try to find what is correct. Many people prefer double sentence spacing for informal use because that was how they were taught to type. There is a debate on which convention is more readable
Readability
Readability is the ease in which text can be read and understood. Various factors to measure readability have been used, such as "speed of perception," "perceptibility at a distance," "perceptibility in peripheral vision," "visibility," "the reflex blink technique," "rate of work" , "eye...
, but the few recent direct studies conducted since 2002 have produced inconclusive results.
Most modern literature on typography
Typography
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading , adjusting the spaces between groups of letters and adjusting the space between pairs of letters...
says that double spacing is wrong, but some non-typographical sources indicate that it could be used on a typewriter or with a monospaced font. The majority of style guides opt for a single space after terminal punctuation for final and published work, with a few permitting double spacing in draft manuscripts and for specific circumstances based on personal preference. Grammar and design guides, including Web design guides, provide similar guidance.
Traditional typesetting
Early printing systems were limited to inflexible word spacing. Improvements that allowed variable spacing soon appeared. Early American, English, and other European typesetters' style guides (also known as printers' rules) specified spacing standards that were all essentially identical from the 18th century onwards. These guides—e.g., Jacobi in the UK (1890) and MacKellar, Harpel, and De Vinne (1866–1901) in the U.S.—indicated that sentences should be emEm (typography)
An em is a unit of measurement in the field of typography, equal to the currently specified point size.The name of em is related to M. Originally the unit was derived from the width of the capital "M" in the given typeface....
-spaced, and that words should be 1/3 or 1/2 em-spaced (illustration right). Only a single type block was typically used, which resulted in the appearance of about a double word space between sentences. For most countries, this remained the standard for published work until the 20th century. Yet, even in this period, there were publishing houses (notably in France) that used a standard word space between sentences—a technique called French spacing (illustration below).
Mechanical type and the advent of the typewriter
Mechanical type systems introduced near the end of the 19th century, such as the Linotype and Monotype machines, allowed variable sentence spacing. However, with the advent of the typewriter and its widespread usage beginning in the late 19th century, the average text composer had only two possibilities—to strike the space bar once or twice between sentences. The typewriter's mechanical limitations did not allow variable spacing. This caused a fundamental change in sentence spacing methods. Typists in some English-speaking countries learned to insert two spaces between sentences to approximate the exaggerated sentence spacing used in traditional printing, a practice that continued throughout the 20th century. This became known as English spacing, and marked a divergence from French typists, who continued to use French spacing.Transition to single spacing
Professional printers moved from double to single sentence spacing in the 20th century. Magazines, newspapers, and books began to adopt the single space convention in the United States in the 1940s and in the United Kingdom in the 1950s. Typists did not transition to single spacing simultaneously. The average writer still relied on the typewriter to create text—with its inherent mechanical spacing limitations.Technological advances began affecting sentence spacing methods. In 1941, IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
introduced the Executive, a typewriter capable of proportional spacing—which had been used in professional typesetting for hundreds of years. This innovation broke the hold that the monospaced font had on the typewriter—reducing the severity of its mechanical limitations. "By the 1960s, electronic phototypesetting systems" ignored runs of white space in text, a feature that reappeared on the World Wide Web, as HTML ignores additional spacing. Computers offered additional sentence spacing tools for the average writer, and the double spacing convention, "as a standard operating procedure ... went out with the IBM Selectric". By the late 20th century, literature on the written word had begun to adjust its guidance on sentence spacing.
Typography
Early positions on typographyTypography
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading , adjusting the spaces between groups of letters and adjusting the space between pairs of letters...
(the "arrangement and appearance of text") supported traditional spacing techniques in English publications. In 1954, Geoffrey Dowding's book, Finer Points in the Spacing and Arrangement of Type, underscored the widespread shift from a single enlarged em space to a standard word space between sentences.
With the advent of the computer age, typographers began deprecating
Deprecation
In the process of authoring computer software, its standards or documentation, deprecation is a status applied to software features to indicate that they should be avoided, typically because they have been superseded...
double spacing, even in monospaced text. In 1989, Desktop Publishing by Design stated that "typesetting
Typesetting
Typesetting is the composition of text by means of types.Typesetting requires the prior process of designing a font and storing it in some manner...
requires only one space after periods, question marks, exclamation points, and colons", and identified single sentence spacing as a typographic convention. Stop Stealing Sheep & Find Out How Type Works (1993) and Designing with Type: The Essential Guide to Typography (2006) both indicate that uniform spacing should be used between words, including between sentences.
More recent works on typography weigh in strongly. Ilene Strizver, founder of the Type Studio, says, "Forget about tolerating differences of opinion: typographically speaking, typing two spaces before the start of a new sentence is absolutely, unequivocally wrong." The Complete Manual on Typography (2003) states that "The typewriter tradition of separating sentences with two word spaces after a period has no place in typesetting" and the single space is "standard typographic practice". The Elements of Typographic Style (2004) advocates a single space between sentences, noting that "your typing as well as your typesetting will benefit from unlearning this quaint [double spacing] Victorian habit."
David Jury's book, About Face: Reviving the Rules of Typography (2004)—published in Switzerland—clarifies the contemporary typographic position on sentence spacing:
Word spaces, preceding or following punctuation, should be optically adjusted to appear to be of the same value as a standard word space. If a standard word space is inserted after a full point or a comma, then, optically, this produces a space of up to 50% wider than that of other word spaces within a line of type. This is because these punctuation marks carry space above them, which, when added to the adjacent standard word spaces, combines to create a visually larger space. Some argue that the "additional" space after a comma and full point serves as a "pause signal" for the reader. But this is unnecessary (and visually disruptive) since the pause signal is provided by the punctuation mark itself.
Style and language guides
Style guides
Early style guideStyle guide
A style guide or style manual is a set of standards for the writing and design of documents, either for general use or for a specific publication, organization or field...
s for typesetting used a wider space between sentences than between words— "traditional spacing," as shown in the illustration to the right. During the 20th century, style guides commonly mandated two spaces between sentences for typewritten manuscripts, which were used prior to professionally typesetting the work. As computer desktop publishing
Desktop publishing
Desktop publishing is the creation of documents using page layout software on a personal computer.The term has been used for publishing at all levels, from small-circulation documents such as local newsletters to books, magazines and newspapers...
became commonplace, typewritten manuscripts became less relevant and most style guides stopped making distinctions between manuscripts and final typeset products. In the same period, style guides began changing their guidance on sentence spacing. The 1969 edition of the Chicago Manual of Style used em spaces between sentences in its text; by the 2003 edition it had changed to single sentence spacing for both manuscript and print. By the 1980s, the United Kingdom's Hart's Rules (1983) had shifted to single sentence spacing. Other style guides followed suit in the 1990s. Soon after the beginning of the 21st century, the majority of style guides had changed to indicate that only one word space was proper between sentences.
Modern style guides provide standards and guidance for the written language. These works are important to writers since "virtually all professional editors work closely with one of them in editing a manuscript for publication." Late editions of comprehensive style guides, such as the Oxford Style Manual (2003) in the United Kingdom and the Chicago Manual of Style
The Chicago Manual of Style
The Chicago Manual of Style is a style guide for American English published since 1906 by the University of Chicago Press. Its 16 editions have prescribed writing and citation styles widely used in publishing...
(2010) in the United States, provide standards for a wide variety of writing and design topics, including sentence spacing. The majority of style guides now prescribe the use of a single space after terminal punctuation in final written works and publications. A few style guides allow double sentence spacing for draft work, and the Gregg Reference Manual makes room for double and single sentence spacing based on author preferences. Web design guides do not usually provide guidance on this topic, as "HTML refuses to recognize double spaces altogether". These works themselves follow the current publication standard of single sentence spacing.
The European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
's Interinstitutional Style Guide (2008) indicates that single sentence spacing is to be used in all European Union publications—encompassing 23 languages. For the English language, the European Commission
European Commission
The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....
's English Style Guide (2010) states that sentences are always single-spaced. The Style Manual: For Authors, Editors and Printers (2007), first published in 1966 by the Commonwealth Government Printing Office of Australia, stipulates that only one space is used after "sentence-closing punctuation", and that "Programs for word processing and desktop publishing offer more sophisticated, variable spacing, so this practice of double spacing is now avoided because it can create distracting gaps on a page."
National languages not covered by an authoritative language academy typically have multiple style guides—only some of which may discuss sentence spacing. This is the case in the United Kingdom. The Oxford Style Manual (2003) and the Modern Humanities Research Association
Modern Humanities Research Association
The Modern Humanities Research Association is a British-based international organization that aims to encourage and promote advanced study and research of humanities. It is most notable for producing the MHRA Style Guide....
's MHRA Style Guide (2002), state that only single spacing should be used. In Canada, both the English and French language sections of the Canadian Style, A Guide to Writing and Editing (1997), prescribe single sentence spacing. In the United States, many style guides—such as the Chicago Manual of Style (2003)—allow only single sentence spacing. The most important style guide in Italy, Il Nuovo Manuale di Stile (2009), does not address sentence spacing, but the Guida di Stile Italiano (2010), the official guide for Microsoft translation, tells users to use single sentence spacing "instead of the double spacing used in the United States".
Language guides
Some languages, such as FrenchFrench language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, have academies that set language rules. Their publications typically address orthography
Orthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
and grammar as opposed to matters of typography. Style guides are less relevant for such languages
Standard language
A standard language is a language variety used by a group of people in their public discourse. Alternatively, varieties become standard by undergoing a process of standardization, during which it is organized for description in grammars and dictionaries and encoded in such reference works...
, as their academies set prescriptive rules
Linguistic prescription
In linguistics, prescription denotes normative practices on such aspects of language use as spelling, grammar, pronunciation, and syntax. It includes judgments on what usages are socially proper and politically correct...
. For example, the Académie française
Académie française
L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...
publishes the Dictionnaire de l'Académie française
Dictionnaire de l'Académie française
The Dictionnaire de l'Académie française is the official dictionary of the French language.The Académie française is France's official authority on the usages, vocabulary, and grammar of the French language, although its recommendations carry no legal power...
for French speakers worldwide. The 1992 edition does not provide guidance on sentence spacing, but is single-sentence-spaced throughout—consistent with historical French spacing. The Spanish language is similar. The most important body within the Association of Spanish Language Academies
Association of Spanish Language Academies
The Association of Spanish Language Academies is the entity which regulates the Spanish language. It was created in Mexico in 1951 and represents the union of all the separate academies in the Spanish-speaking world....
, the Real Academia Española
Real Academia Española
The Royal Spanish Academy is the official royal institution responsible for regulating the Spanish language. It is based in Madrid, Spain, but is affiliated with national language academies in twenty-one other hispanophone nations through the Association of Spanish Language Academies...
, publishes the Diccionario de la Lengua Española
Diccionario de la lengua española de la Real Academia Española
The Diccionario de la lengua española de la Real Academia Española or DRAE is the most authoritative dictionary of the Spanish language. It is produced, edited, and published by the Real Academia Española ; the first edition was published in 1780...
, which is viewed as prescriptive for the Spanish language worldwide. The 2001 edition does not provide sentence spacing guidance, but is itself single sentence spaced. The German language manual Empfehlungen des Rats für Deutsche Rechtschreibung
Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung
The Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung , or RdR, is the main international body regulating the German language.With its seat being in Mannheim, Germany, the RdR was formed in 2004 as a successor to the Zwischenstaatliche Kommission für deutsche Rechtschreibung in order to comprise proponents as well...
("Recommendations of the Council for German Orthography") (2006) does not address sentence spacing. The manual itself uses one space after terminal punctuation. Additionally, the Duden
Duden
The Duden is a German dictionary, first published by Konrad Duden in 1880.Currently the Duden is in its 25th edition and published in 12 volumes, each covering different aspects like loan words, etymology, pronunciation, synonyms, etc...
, the German language dictionary most commonly used in Germany, indicates that double sentence spacing is an error.
Grammar guides
A few reference grammars address sentence spacing, as increased spacing between words is punctuation in itself. Most do not. Grammar guides typically cover terminal punctuationTerminal punctuation
Terminal punctuation are punctuation marks used to identify the end of a portion of text. Terminal punctuation marks are also referred to as end marks and stops....
and the proper construction of sentences—but not the spacing between sentences. Moreover, many modern grammar guides are designed for quick reference and refer users to comprehensive style guide
Style guide
A style guide or style manual is a set of standards for the writing and design of documents, either for general use or for a specific publication, organization or field...
s for additional matters of writing style. For example, the Pocket Idiot's Guide to Grammar and Punctuation (2005) points users to style guides such as the MLA Style Manual
The MLA Style Manual
The MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing is the third edition of The MLA Style Manual, first published by the Modern Language Association of America in 1985...
for consistency in formatting work and for all other "editorial concerns". The Grammar Bible (2004) states that "The modern system of English punctuation is by no means simple. A book that covers all the bases would need to be of considerable breadth and weight and anyone interested in such a resource is advised to consult the Chicago Manual of Style."
Digital age
Mignon FogartyMignon Fogarty
Mignon Fogarty is a former science writer who produces an educational podcast Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing, which promotes the proper use of the English language and was named one of the best podcasts of 2007 by iTunes. She is also the founder of the Quick and Dirty Tips...
, "Grammar Girl
Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing
"Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing" is an educational podcast that was launched in July 2006 and the title of a print book that was released in July 2008. The podcast, which has ranked as high as #2 on iTunes, offers short one-topic English grammar lessons at no charge to...
", points out that in the past, typewriting used two spaces—in deference to its monospaced font limitations—but "Now that most writing is done on computers it is no longer necessary to type two spaces after a period at the end of a sentence." She answers the question of "How many spaces?" as follows: "On a typewriter, use two. On a computer, use one." This position highlights the late 20th-century transition from the typewriter to the computer, and its effect on sentence spacing.
Today, computers and digital fonts allow sentence spacing variations not possible with the typewriter. Proportional fonts are widely available to average computer users. Computer-based tools such as proportional fonts, kerning
Kerning
In typography, kerning is the process of adjusting the spacing between characters in a proportional font, usually to achieve a visually pleasing result. Kerning is the adjustment of the space between individual letter forms vs. tracking which is the uniform adjustment of spacing applied over a...
, computer-based word processors, and software such as TeX
TeX
TeX is a typesetting system designed and mostly written by Donald Knuth and released in 1978. Within the typesetting system, its name is formatted as ....
allow users to arrange text in a manner previously only available to professional typesetters. These tools are also available on the World Wide Web, even though single spacing is the convention because of the characteristics of HTML
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
. Yet, even in the digital age, many school students are still taught to strike the space bar twice between sentences when using computers, contributing to confusion regarding sentence spacing in the 21st century.
The text editing environment in Emacs
Emacs
Emacs is a class of text editors, usually characterized by their extensibility. GNU Emacs has over 1,000 commands. It also allows the user to combine these commands into macros to automate work.Development began in the mid-1970s and continues actively...
uses a double space following a period to identify the end of sentences unambiguously; the double space convention prevents confusion with periods within sentences which signify abbreviations. How Emacs recognizes the end of a sentence is controlled by the settings sentence-end-double-space and sentence-end.
Controversy
James Felici, author of the Complete Manual of Typography, says that the topic of sentence spacing is "the debate that refuses to die ... In all my years of writing about type, it's still the question I hear most often, and a search of the web will find threads galore on the subject". This subject is still widely debated today because many typists were taught to use double sentence spacing in school. As a result, there is a common belief that double sentence spacing is "correct", even given modern technology and proportional fonts. This is similar to other obsolete typewriter conventions, practiced in deference to its "severe technical limitations", that are still used by writers. These include the use of prime marks (or "dumb quotes") for quotation marks, underlining words in place of italics, and using hyphens to approximate en and em dashes.Many people are opposed to single sentence spacing for various reasons. Some state that the habit of double spacing is too deeply ingrained to change. Others claim that additional space between sentences makes text "look better" or easier to read. Proponents of double sentence spacing also state that some publishers may still require double spaced manuscript submissions from authors. A key example noted is the screenwriting industry's monospaced "standard" for screenplay manuscripts, Courier
Courier (typeface)
Courier is a monospaced slab serif typeface designed to resemble the output from a strike-on typewriter. The typeface was designed by Howard "Bud" Kettler in 1955...
, 12-point font, although some works on screenwriting indicate that Courier is merely "preferred," and that proportional fonts may be used. Some reliable sources state simply that writers should follow their particular style guide, but proponents of double spacing caution that publisher's guidance takes precedence, including those that ask for double sentence spaced manuscripts.
In opposition to these ideas, many experts state that double sentence spacing was only relevant when faced with the limitations of the typewriter, and is now obsolete for most uses, especially given the capabilities of modern computers and digital fonts. While typewriter users had only two choices (to strike the space bar once or twice), modern proportional fonts allow compositors to manually adjust sentence spacing to thousandths of an inch for visually pleasing typesetting. Some sources state it is also acceptable even for monospaced fonts to be single spaced today, although other references specify double spacing for monospaced fonts. Another opinion is that as terminal punctuation marks the end of a sentence, and additional spacing is itself punctuation, additional spacing is redundant.
The double space typewriter convention was taught in schools in typing classes, and that remains the practice in many cases. Some voice concerns that students will later be forced to relearn how to type. Most style guides indicate that single sentence spacing is proper for final or published work today, and "most publishers" require manuscripts to be submitted as they will appear in publication—single sentence spaced. Writing sources typically recommend that prospective authors remove extra spaces before submitting manuscripts; although other sources state that publishers will use software to remove the spaces before final publication. Finally, some experts state that, while double spacing sentences in unpublished papers and informal use (such as e-mail) might be fine, double sentence spacing in desktop-published (DTP
Desktop publishing
Desktop publishing is the creation of documents using page layout software on a personal computer.The term has been used for publishing at all levels, from small-circulation documents such as local newsletters to books, magazines and newspapers...
) works will make the final result look "unprofessional" and "foolish".
Effects on readability and legibility
Claims abound regarding the legibility and readabilityReadability
Readability is the ease in which text can be read and understood. Various factors to measure readability have been used, such as "speed of perception," "perceptibility at a distance," "perceptibility in peripheral vision," "visibility," "the reflex blink technique," "rate of work" , "eye...
of the single and double sentence spacing methods—by proponents on both sides. Supporters of single spacing assert that familiarity with the current standard in books, magazines, and the Web enhances readability, that double spacing looks strange in text using proportional fonts, and that the "rivers
River (typography)
In typography, rivers, or rivers of white, are gaps appearing to run down a paragraph of text, due to a coincidental alignment of spaces. They can occur regardless of the spacing settings, but are most noticeable with wide inter-word spaces caused by full text justification or monospaced...
" and "holes" caused by double spacing impair readability. Proponents of double sentence spacing state that the extra space between sentences enhances readability by providing breaks between sentences and makes text appear more legible.
However, typographic opinions are typically anecdotal with no basis in evidence. "Opinions are not always safe guides to legibility of print", and when direct studies are conducted, anecdotal opinions—even those of experts—can turn out to be false. Text that seems legible (visually pleasing at first glance), may be shown to actually impair reading effectiveness when subjected to scientific study.