Fanning the fire....

Like I said, fanning the flames....

My only mistake was that I said text editor instead of word processor. Just check your favorite one, M$ Word, whatever.... IT IS PART OF THE DESIGN TO SPACE CHARACTERS CORRECTLY!!! do you seriously think that a word processor is just a computerized typewriter?! If so, then why do two l's next to each look closer together in Times New Roman, and far apart in Monaco?

Hmm?

BECAUSE ONE IS VARIABLE WIDTH AND THE OTHER IS FIXED !!!

I won't resort to name calling because I know I am right ;)

http://www.webword.com/reports/period.html
(and in case you are too lazy (or too stuck in the past) to click this link (which can happen to those whose minds have been twisted by two spaces :P ) here's an excerpt)

One of the next things I realized is that, in general, the spacing after a period will be irrelevant since most fonts used today are proportional. That is, each character is not the same size. Amy Gahran of Contentious kindly indicated that very few monospaced (i.e., non-proportional) fonts are used today on the Internet, except for perhaps Courier. This is generally the case offline as well. Proportional fonts are used much more often. For your information, I did not get any good feedback about the various fonts that are used for other Internet applications and activities, such as chat rooms and email. My guess is that they are mostly monospaced, but it is just a guess.

Like Amy Gahran, Kathy Gill told me that the current typographic standard for a single space after the period is a reflection of the power of proportionally spaced fonts.

"The only reason that two spaces were used after a period during the 'typewriter' age was because original typewriters had monospaced fonts -- the extra space was needed for the eye to pick up on the beginning of a new sentence. That need is negated w/proportional space type, hence [it is] the typographic standard."

While I'm on the topic, here's what one of the folks at The Design & Publishing Center had to say about the history of typographic spacing:

"In the days of typewriter manuscripts the extra space was necessary to separate the ends and beginnings of sentences. The space character never changed. With the advent of electronic typesetting, the software attempts to 'fit' the type to specific line lengths, it both expands or contracts the available space to make the type fit. Word spacing is where most of this space 'play' takes place."

This same writer went on to tell me that the use of two spaces is visually distracting, and can be a typographic design danger:

"With two spaces, there is 'more' space to play with, and if space is added (which is most often the case) the results are white spots, and in some cases "rivers" of blank spots in the body of text. This makes the body both unattractive as a visual element, and distracting to read."

Many people told me about the various rules and style guides they follow. Similarly, several people indicated that etiquette is an important consideration for spacing after a period. Apparently, the vast majority of these guides tell writers to use a single space. From what I am told, very little reason is given for this stylistic requirement. However, this doesn't mean that folks like David Siegel, writer of the popular Creating Killer Web Sites, isn't fanatical about using a single space. In short, the "rivers" of whitespace, caused by using two spaces, invariably annoy graphic designers and typographers. Well, at least the ones that contacted me.

AND,

to all those '2 spacers' out there --> familiarize yourself with the term 'kerning' you need to, trust me

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerning

and it's coming to browsers soon too, although slowly and it's crap right now --> http://opentype.info/blog/2008/06/14/kerning-and-opentype-features-in-firefox-3/

Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.

~John Kenneth Galbraith

"I grew up the son of a legal secretary, and she beat into my being the tao of typing. Ever present on the computer desk was a copy of the Secretary's Handbook."

times change my friend. 'river' effects are just one of many reasons...

AND THIS IS VERY VERY IMPORTANT

I never said that there would not be a difference if you add two spaces in openoffice as opposed to one. you misunderstood my post. What I said was word processors have KERNING, check your openoffice, you can even set the word processor kerning setting, as in IF YOU LIKE, YOU CAN HAVE THE WORD PROCESSOR ADD TWO SPACES AFTER A PERIOD AUTOMATICALLY!!!!! thus negating the need to actually TYPE TWO SPACES!!! Usually kerning is set to a little more than the width of one space. but not for fixed width fonts, like courier, only truetype fonts which store the specific information on spacing.

In the end you can believe what you want, it really doesn't matter to me. People are resistant to change, it's nothing new for a long time everyone stubbornly thought the earth was the center of the universe, that the earth was flat, etc. I am not really that passionate about this subject, I just think it's funny how so many people are :P

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