Remember typing class. Period, space, space. If you type on a personal computer, delete this instruction from your memory. Now!
Welcome to keyboarding class. Period, space. That’s it.
Typewriters have only monospaced characters; personal computers have mostly proportional ones. What’s the difference?
This is an example of a monospaced typeface (Courier New). Each character takes up the same amount of space. Thus, a period takes up as much space as a letter on a page. Space hog! Consequently, it was considered “best practice” to put two spaces after periods to clearly separate your sentences.
This is an example of a proportional typeface (Verdana). Each character only gets the space it needs. Thus, a period will take up less space than a letter on a page because its smaller than any letter of the alphabet. Consequently, it’s now considered “best practice” to treat periods like any other character and only add one space. This rule applies to other punctuation marks as well. No exceptions!
I know this is a hard habit to break. However, your publication will look more professional if you do. As the sheep on Animal Farm would say: “Double space baaad; single space goood!”
Tip: If you use Adobe InDesign CS4 to layout your pages, you can eliminate all of these double spaces in your document with a single click. Just click on the list arrow for the query box at the top of the Find/Replace dialogue box. (See ”Find“screen shot.) Make sure you are searching your entire document, not just one section.
I had no idea that the rules had changed. Thanks!