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Do you double space after periods?

Posted Jan 14th, 2011 at 7:51 PM and seen
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Finally, an answer to the age-old (and quite geeky) question—should you double space after a period? No! So why do so many people swear that you should? Well, long story short, most typewriters used monospace fonts (meaning letters that each took up the exact same width). Typists were trained to insert an extra space to give a period some room before adding in the next capital letter.

But that was a long time ago. Technology has evolved a lot since then. Fonts are now designed proportionately. Your computer now knows that an ‘i’ takes up less room than an ‘m’, and adjusts the space to fit accordingly. For this reason, inserting a double space after a period today is a big fat waste of time. And it doesn’t look too good either.

Full story at GOOD.

More on typography for font fanatics.

 Catherine Faas

Comments (12)

Jan 15, 2011
Jimg said...
When Desktop Publishing first hit (1985?), the question of double space or single space was answered simply: Double space was for typewriters, single for typography.
Jan 15, 2011
John Lloyd said...
As Dan Hallahan and I noted, not only is it a waste of time, it's also (teehee) a waste of space! So, when the widely followed Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association suggested that authors could double space after sentence-ending punctuation in their manuscripts, we created http://spacewaste.wordpress.com/ as a forum for questioning that curious recommendation.
Jan 15, 2011
GaryFPatton said...
I'm so glad to learn why people tell us to waste our time doing that! :-)
Jan 15, 2011
David Stewart said...
The odd thing about this explanation is that if you have a monospaced font the period will have more room than in a proportional font. So if the goal is to maintain that space the move to a proportional font would actually require the double space more than a monospaced one. Personally I find two spaces more readable as it helps separate one sentence from the next much more clearly. The only place it find it problematic is in designing a page layout where too much white space lines up and creates the dreaded whitespace rivers. I that instance I would use single spaces.
Jan 15, 2011
canweather said...
It was always the case to have a single space in any typeset document. Several habits became standard on typewriters due to the mono-spaced characters. The double space was one. Another was using underlines for emphasis in place of italics (you don't get italics on a typewriter). Some people still insist on underlines today even though they're no longer necessary.

Some managers who came up by way of the typing pool weren't able to let go of the double-space thing. Browsers render text (in most cases) with only a single space. I remember one steel-willed biddy who insisted on adding an non-breaking space after sentences so that the formatting would look right to her.

Jan 16, 2011
iphoneuser said...
With iPhone now, we double space to get a period.
Jan 17, 2011
Joe Taylor Jr. said...
I remember getting a phone call from a panicked client about a freelance assignment I turned in without the extra space after each period. "What shoddy work," she said. "I can't believe we paid you for this!" She hadn't even read any of the copy after the first period. A quick search-and-replace later, things were cool. But I'm pretty sure I never accepted another gig from that firm again.
Jan 17, 2011
Matt Outerson said...
I love double-spacing after my periods.
Jan 18, 2011
lilbytes said...
Years later, I still have a hard time not double spacing after a period. I waste more time making the conscious effort not to double space, because that's how I was taught to do it. While I don't double space anymore, I do find double spacing more readable.
Jan 18, 2011
TS Elliott said...
I have to double space after a period. I can't stop myself - Now I feel like an idiot!!!
Jan 19, 2011
acl reconstruction surgery said...
yes thats very right coz in my child hood mobile was a big thing to use to and today every kid use it as a toy same way technology has grown in a rapid way no one use double space peroid
Feb 14, 2011
Sam said...
I see absolutely no need to double space. In fact I only heard someone say that was correct the other day. And I'm a final year PhD, I was also on the correspondence team in my last job. Technology has moved on, there are more important things to think about, like the meaning of the universe!

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