A Typography Two-spaced No-no
Do you add two spaces at the end of every typed sentence? For those of us who learned the “proper technique” of typewriting many years ago, we were drilled with this procedure on typewriters that looked like they belonged on the Mary Tyler Moore show. This habit is part of my subconscious; I must hit the space bar twice after a period at the end of a sentence. It is a hard habit to break, but a definitive no-no according to many writing standards guides and typography experts (check the latest MLA standard). When one understands why adding two spaces after a period at the end of a sentence is no longer necessary, the single-space concept makes sense. Let’s look at two examples below:
(Two-spaces)
Indianapolis is located in central Indiana. It is three hours south of Chicago, Illinois, and two hours north of Louisville, Kentucky. Through it flows the White River, which is not very white but rather muddy looking. It is home to the Colts football team and the Pacers basketball team. The airport lies on the west side.
(One-space)
Indianapolis is located in central Indiana. It is three hours south of Chicago, Illinois, and two hours north of Louisville, Kentucky. Through it flows the White River, which is not very white but rather muddy looking. It is home to the Colts football team and the Pacers basketball team. The airport lies on the west side.
You can see the obvious wider spacing between sentences in the first paragraph. The typewriters many of us learned on only had monospaced fonts as shown in the examples above. Every letter used the same amount of space making it harder to visually distinguish the end of a sentence. The two-spaced approach after a period and sentence helped to visually break up the sentences and made them easier to read.
Modern computer fonts, however, have solved this problem. One no longer needs to add two spaces after a period to help solve a monospaced font problem because modern typography is no longer monospaced. Letters now fit together properly. An ‘i’ occupies less space than an ‘m’. In fact, you may be making your paragraphs look worse with the double spaces, inadvertently creating gaping holes throughout your document.
Rest assured, for those die-hard fans of the period-double-space technique, the APA standard has reverted back to it. While there are many critics of both spacing guidelines, following good typography style for web design is just common sense.
