# HOW MANY $@#!@ SPACES DO YOU ADD AFTER A PERIOD?



## Ralph Rotten

Heh, did the caps get your attention?
Betcha thought your grandpa was posting on the forum, eh? 


Okay, here is the deal; I am having a twitter debate with another writer who insists that there is no longer a need to double-space after the . ! ?
Here is a link to an article he cited.
https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/two-spaces-after-a-period


Okay, I am old school on this.  I still use 2 spaces because I prefer the way it looks, both in print and digital.
I want the big space between sentences so the reader's brain resets.  It feels cluttered to me with only 1 space.


What say you, fellow authors? How many of you still use 2 spaces?


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## luckyscars

Ralph Rotten said:


> Heh, did the caps get your attention?
> Betcha thought your grandpa was posting on the forum, eh?
> 
> 
> Okay, here is the deal; I am having a twitter debate with another writer who insists that there is no longer a need to double-space after the . ! ?
> Here is a link to an article he cited.
> https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/two-spaces-after-a-period
> 
> 
> Okay, I am old school on this.  I still use 2 spaces because I prefer the way it looks, both in print and digital.
> I want the big space between sentences so the reader's brain resets.  It feels cluttered to me with only 1 space.
> 
> 
> What say you, fellow authors? How many of you still use 2 spaces?



Ironically enough, this post of yours appears as single spaced. Haven't checked your others but it got me wondering - so do you tend toward a single space on forum posting and double space on 'real writing'? How does your brain work with that differentiation?

Anyhow, to answer your question: Coming of age in the early-ish nineties, I remember first learning to type on a typewriter but then switching to a computer by the time I was old enough to actually type in quantity. Subsequently I do vaguely remember being told 'two spaces after a period' like I remember how to change a ribbon...but, fortunately or unfortunately , by the time I actually started writing full-time the habit or any opinion on the habit had not formed, so I was able to dispense with it as soon as I realized nobody else was doing it that way. My handwriting is a weird mix of cursive and print, too. Generational quirks, I guess. I have not seen anybody under forty-five or so who double-spaces following a period.

 I have been submitting to publications like crazy lately and have seen all kinds of MS requirements and a lot of super pedantic formatting right down to width of margins, but nowhere have I seen any stipulations regarding spacing following periods. I'd assume most sensible publishers recognize there is no established 'right' way and that the double-space is non-offensive and largely vanishing organically as the writers who learned that way age out. 

That's my .02 anyway.


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## Olly Buckle

I always single spaced. I have never heard of the double space convention before, probably a measure of my ignorance. On the other hand I bet nobody would notice/comment on, double spacing.


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## JustRob

I am old enough to know about the double spacing convention as taught on typing courses when typewriters were used and produced fixed pitch text. Modern proportional fonts allegedly don't need it so much though. Nevertheless I agree that it does give the reader a clear signal to take a break from parsing the text, especially with the long sentences that I tend to write. Hence I double space in emails because I want the busy reader to get a clear message but don't do it in WF posts because someone is bound to grumble if I do and anyway members are expected to be astute readers who pay careful attention to what is written. In works for publication the spaces will probably be adjusted by the publisher to match the house style anyway, so one is sufficient and advised.

Just out of curiosity I have repeated the above paragraph using a fixed pitch font below. If anything the single spaces look clearer than when using a proportional font, which may explain why I still double space when using a proportional font and not expecting (hyper)critical readers. As ever the watchword is to bear in mind your target readers when making decisions.

*I am old enough to know about the double spacing convention as taught on  typing courses when typewriters were used and produced fixed pitch  text. Modern proportional fonts allegedly don't need it so much though.  Nevertheless I agree that it does give the reader a clear signal to take  a break from parsing the text, especially with the long sentences that I  tend to write. Hence I double space in emails because I want the busy  reader to get a clear message but don't do it in WF posts because  someone is bound to grumble if I do and anyway members are expected to  be astute readers who pay careful attention to what is written. In works  for publication the spaces will probably be adjusted by the publisher  to match the house style anyway, so one is sufficient and advised.*


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## Darren White

Olly Buckle said:


> I always single spaced. I have never heard of the double space convention before, probably a measure of my ignorance. On the other hand I bet nobody would notice/comment on, double spacing.



Neither have I. Before I joined WF I had never even heard of it  Where I live that is not in use.
But once I did notice, I started to pay attention to it, and the number of people here using it is high. I must say that at first it annoyed me, because for a while the only thing I could do, was counting double spaces, completely forgetting what I was reading.


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## epimetheus

First i've ever heard of it. Won't be changing.


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## moderan

Editors hate double spacing. In most software environments, you have to fix it by hand.


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## Terry D

Back when I learned typing, in the stone ages of 1972, we were taught to double space after a full stop. If I remember correctly it had something to do with manual typesetting. I continued the habit up until 5 or 6 years ago when I read that type-setters in the digital age do indeed hate it. You can still find plenty of articles on the interwebs which recommend it, but major style guides like the _Chicago Manual of Style_, the _US Government Printing Office Manual of Style_, and the_ AP Stylebook_ suggest a single space.

Will adding that extra space destroy your chances of being accepted? Of course not (unless the market specifically states a preference in their guidelines), it's just one of the little things that add to the overall appearance of professionalism.


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## Ralph Rotten

luckyscars said:


> Ironically enough, this post of yours appears as single spaced. Haven't checked your others but it got me wondering - so do you tend toward a single space on forum posting and double space on 'real writing'? How does your brain work with that differentiation?



When I am writing for digital media I single-space. This is twitter's fault with their character limitation. On Twitter you need every space.
But when I am in manuscript-mode, I double-space.
In forums sometimes I do both. 




Funny thing about those responses, they sorta tell me how old each of you are.
1972 Terry? Wow.


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## Terry D

Ralph Rotten said:


> Funny thing about those responses, they sorta tell me how old each of you are.
> 1972 Terry? Wow.



Yeah. Old fart. The only good thing about it is I'm too old now to die young.


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## Dluuni

One. The fonts, etc. correct for it now and all the style guides I have seen ask for a single space after a period because we don't use manual typewriters that may or may not print the actual period boldly enough to see anymore.


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## Ralph Rotten

What's odd is someone was just telling me the other day how their Ipad would auto-add the 2 spaces (and they had just realized this after using it for a year...)


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## Olly Buckle

Olly Buckle said:


> I always single spaced. I have never heard of the double space convention before, probably a measure of my ignorance. On the other hand I bet nobody would notice/comment on, double spacing.


Having seen a few of the replies I should amend this 'On the other hand I bet the majority of every-day readers would not notice double spacing even if it stood out to some writers.'

I am now waiting for BlondeAverageReader to tell me I am wrong about that too


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## Ralph Rotten

I notice it when I read other people's books.
For me there needs to be enough of a space for my brain to fully register the break.
A single space always felt like the sentences were all running into each other...cluttered.
But then again, I'm an obsessive shit who tends to hyper-focus on inane details.


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## Olly Buckle

Speaking of details, what on earth is $@#!@ in the thread title? I can think of four letter words that would fit, but a five letter one ? ...


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## Ralph Rotten

Okay, I did some research and found out that if you set your margins for full-pagination, then the issue of 1 space or 2 is moot.
MSWord adjusts the space to fit, regardless of spaces.

So that means there is really no need for 2 spaces, and it will only confound the typesetters if you try to publish it.
MSWord will compensate.


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## Darren White

That is even worse. I'm perhaps obsessive too, but I get horribly distracted by that sort of outlining. All I can pay attention to then, is how ridiculous some lines are sitting on that page, and I forget to read the story. 

I prefer pages single spaced, and outlined to the left (or to the right when I am reading Arabic)


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## Pete_C

The double space conventions has nought to do with typewriters, predating that invention. It is a typesetting convention of too many years ago.

I opt for left aligned, non-justified, non-hyphenated text with single spacing after periods. The reason is research has shown it to be the easiest and most comfortable layout for reading (with the presumption that line length does not exceed 60 characters-ish).

Others do it other ways, but I prefer to give readers the easiest layout.


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## Terry D

Unless you are self-publishing it really doesn't matter what you like. What matters is what editors want and most, but by no means all, usually specify standard manuscript format for their convenience.

https://www.scribophile.com/academy/how-to-format-a-short-story-manuscript

https://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/what-are-the-guidelines-for-formating-a-manuscript

https://www.sfwa.org/2005/01/manuscript-format/


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## moderan

Terry D said:


> Unless you are self-publishing it really doesn't matter what you like. What matters is what editors want and most, but by no means all, usually specify standard manuscript format for their convenience.
> 
> https://www.scribophile.com/academy/how-to-format-a-short-story-manuscript
> 
> https://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/what-are-the-guidelines-for-formating-a-manuscript
> 
> https://www.sfwa.org/2005/01/manuscript-format/


It's not convenience -- it's cost-effectiveness that's the driver. It takes far longer to 'fix' an ms that's not in standard format...I mentioned that double-spaced period intervals have to be fixed by hand. Same with hard returns, headers/footers, other such nonsense. It costs editors time and publishers money as those are chargeable hours.
Go get a copy of the Chicago manual. It's the standard. And always sub in standard format unless directed otherwise. Times New Roman or Courier New, 10-12 pt., single-spaced, contact information at the top.


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## Ralph Rotten

When I'm rich and famous, I will have minions to delete the extra spaces.


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## Omnitech

I had to break my habit of double spacing after a period when my English Comp I professor told me it was incorrect, and asked me why I did that. It was drilled into my head in typing class in the mid 90's. I have read a few times that double spacing was way before my time and it was odd that I learned it. My typing instructor was roughly 127 years old (I am assuming much younger but I was a teenager, everyone seemed old) and used an electric type writer while we learned on a Mac Plus. Double spacing "feels" right to me, and I often catch myself in the act and have to delete a space before carrying on.


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## Ralph Rotten

I started typing on a government-surplus Royal typewriter in the mid 70s (wrote my first short stories on that typewriter, way back in the 7th grade.)
Then typing class in...79 I think.
And they taught the 2 space rule then.
It was hard to break the habit when I am on twitter.










Wow. I still remember being *awed *the first time I used an IBM Selectric.
I swear I could hear angels singing in the background.


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## rayhensley

Single. Never heard of double, lol.


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## JustRob

moderan said:


> Editors hate double spacing. In most software environments, you have to fix it by hand.



Really? How quaintly behind the times, but isn't that just the publishing industry for you. If you really hate something then you learn how to kill it.

Incidentally many systems just regard the spaces as "whitespace", as it's technically called, and present it as they prefer.       Just to demonstrate I typed several spaces between these two sentences but the vBulletin editor reduced them to one to save space because that's its style regardless of our preferences. The modern approach is to regard content and presentation as separate subjects to be assessed and processed separately and whitespace in the content doesn't have a defined length as such unless one insists on it. In E-books many of the decisions about presentation can be left to the reader's E-reader as they are based on HTML, which also happens to work in terms of blocks of whitespace rather than individual spaces as characters, so, as has been mentioned, the issue is really just one in typesetting.



Olly Buckle said:


> Speaking of details, what on earth is $@#!@  in the thread title? I can think of four letter words that would fit,  but a five letter one ? ...



Well, it evidently requires dollars up front so must be a specifically American expletive, maybe an obscene amount of money. Is that extra space so expensive in the US then? I thought they had plenty of it. We've discussed ten cent words elsewhere so maybe these are "$5000 spaces". That would read as pretty obscene I think.


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## moderan

Pontificating on some imagined modern approach aside, it's a matter of uniformity. The sentences and paragraphs in a book need to look the same. It's the editor's job to do that. Removing those extra spaces by hand takes time...and you have to go over the mss anyway, for spelling, grammar, and suchlike. 
Ebooks are NOT based on _HTML_. It _isn't_ a matter of typesetting. Most are based on flavors of _XML_, which is a completely different kind of markup language, and writers use competing versions of software to generate their XML. Therefore an across-the-board approach isn't feasible. Using the home software's corrective features does not guarantee success -- one still has to eyeball the work.


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## JustRob

moderan said:


> Pontificating on some imagined modern approach aside, it's a matter of uniformity. The sentences and paragraphs in a book need to look the same. It's the editor's job to do that. Removing those extra spaces by hand takes time...and you have to go over the mss anyway, for spelling, grammar, and suchlike.
> Ebooks are NOT based on _HTML_. It _isn't_ a matter of typesetting. Most are based on flavors of _XML_, which is a completely different kind of markup language, and writers use competing versions of software to generate their XML. Therefore an across-the-board approach isn't feasible. Using the home software's corrective features does not guarantee success -- one still has to eyeball the work.



Please let's not get into a techie hair splitting debate about HTML and XML. I've just unzipped an unprotected EPUB file and it contains .CSS style sheets and .HTML files containing the text. Each file marked as .HTML contains the <HTML> tag and ends with the </HTML> tag, so it's definitely HTML. However, nowadays the HTML file format is a subset of the XML file format, so indeed a flavour of XML as you state, so we are both right. That sample file was generated by a Word to EPUB conversion application from a document given to me by another member for beta reading, so none of my doing. In my previous post I was just stating what I know to be true by looking at the actual files, not expressing a questionable opinion as I admittedly more often do. 

I actually directly edit my own text in its native HTML to avoid nasty structural junk from normal text editors creeping in, but the example that I chose to check here wasn't mine. You can unzip an unprotected EPUB E-book, edit it with an HTML editor and then zip it back up again. It's basically web pages inside a zip file and that's all. Nowadays common text editors, even Word, are claimed to be XML compatible but the XML structure is so generic that there's a lot of application specific junk thrown in. E-books try much harder to be compatible; at least the open format ones do. Amazon are a law unto themselves as ever of course, so I keep clear of their proprietary file formats.

Hopefully that's the techie hair-splitting stuff covered adequately. Pax.


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## Ralph Rotten

An eBook is essentially a web page in a zip file.
XML isn't terribly different from html.


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## Olly Buckle

It amazes me sometimes; "Do I hit the space bar once or twice?" and we are up to page three and almost thirty replies. I do believe there are people here could discuss which end of an egg to break


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## moderan

They're completely different in intent and structure. Ask the W3, who oughta know:


XML was designed to carry data - with focus on what data is
HTML was designed to display data - with focus on how data looks
HTML works with predefined tags like <p>, <h1>, <table>, etc.
With XML, the author must define both the tags and the document structure. 
HTML defines how an object looks. CSS determines the structure.
XML describes how it behaves.

And with ebooks, _we're talking about Amazon's proprietary file structure_, because it is _the single largest audience segment_. Let's not be disingenuous, and let us not cherry-pick. Let us also stop arguing inconsequentialities. 
It isn't even a useful drift. You do this:



Choose “Find…”




In the Find field, type . followed by two spaces.




In the Replace field, type . followed one space.




Click Replace All. ...




Back in the Find field, type . ...




In the Replace field, type . ...




Click Replace All.




Look through the script.


And you go through the ms to make sure.

It's just _due diligence_. In the end, it's just doing the job right, regardless of the format of the manuscript. The Chicago Manual of Style recommends a single space. That's good enough for me.




> “The standard for composition [typesetting] such as that in the text of this book would be a 3-to-em space [a third of an em] . . . between words, after colons, after exclamation and interrogation points, and after periods ending sentences” (11th ed., p. 8). So “one space” is a relatively new convention for manuscripts but less new for published documents."


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## Omnitech

Olly Buckle said:


> It amazes me sometimes; "Do I hit the space bar once or twice?" and we are up to page three and almost thirty replies. I do believe there are people here could discuss which end of an egg to break



Whats to discuss? There is only one way to break an egg! 

[video=youtube;ZtZpqbTDwgM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtZpqbTDwgM[/video]


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## Olly Buckle

No no, it hit it on the side, everybody agrees it should be one end or the other, but the Lilliputians say the pointy end. That is ridiculous, the air sac is at the other end and hitting it there allows the shell to collapse properly. Bash it on the blunt end baby.


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## Megan Pearson

A little late to the party here, but I, too, learned on an old Royale. (It had been my grandmother's...something I learned from my aunt who wanted it back several years after I pitched it in the dumpster! :shock: ) By the time I inherited it, the keys would bunch up and stick if struck too quickly. (I may still have some of those stories I wrote on it somewhere.) So come high school, off to typing class I went. There they had some old electric typewriters. These were not the 'quiet deluxe' kind, but the noisy so-you-know-they're-working kind (yah, yah--this may have been the nineties but there wasn't a computer in my entire high school curriculum). There I sat every day _after_ school trying to unlearn the 'how to bash the keys slowly' technique I had mastered. No kidding, it was torture! The poor old professor (slightly younger than Luckyscars' model) had never had a kid who had self-taught on a Royale before. For my belabored effort, he passed me--even though I still typed slow-as-a-turtle. (Of which I have since been cured.)

But onto the meat of the subject. Yes, on the Royale it was two spaces following a period, for readability's sake, but on the electric, I think it was one space after a period but two if following something fancy--say, a colon or something. The only purpose I can remember hearing given for this was so that the post office could read it better with their new scanning equipment. (I'm sure that's not a problem anymore.) By college, the requirement was either that your handwriting be as clear as text or we could use a word processing machine. My word processor would show 4 (3? 5?) lines of text at a time, or I could use it as a typewriter without its memory function. There seriously was no way I could review it for spacing. (They introduced a computer room for email and issued email accounts in my last year, so that was a while ago.) But in grad school (yes--Chicago style), the writing prof. went to war against all practitioners of the 'double-space' club. Now I make sure I double-check everything instead. You can do that in Word, select Home, select the backward & double stemmed P-icon, and it will show you all nonprinting characters in your text. 



Oh, and I'm all for bashing the egg. The more shells in the batter, the better. Less people to cook for in the future.
(Yes, I'm joking!!! I may make a mean pancake, but it's not known for its crunchability!)


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## JustRob

moderan said:


> And with ebooks, _we're talking about Amazon's proprietary file structure_, because it is _the single largest audience segment_.



Immediately there are two subjects that I avoid: "Amazon" and "proprietary". I suspect that they take their power from the dark side of the force that is capitalism. Hence no comment.



Olly Buckle said:


> No no, it hit it on the side, everybody agrees it should be one end or the other, but the Lilliputians say the pointy end. That is ridiculous, the air sac is at the other end and hitting it there allows the shell to collapse properly. Bash it on the blunt end baby.



At the risk of being controversial (again) the Lilliputians were split into big-endians and little-endians, which illustrated how they were literally small-minded. The two political parties in that story were the origin of the names for the two ways of storing numbers in computers, big end first and little end first. When working with computer systems at the lowest levels one has to know when to switch from one convention to the other. 

In text numbers can also be big-endian and little-endian. In English Roman numerals are big-endian because one reads them from left to right to get the ball park value immediately. For example the number "MM..." is at least two thousand. The so-called arabic numerals that we commonly use are actually little-endian in their native language, where they are read from right to left, so "...2" is two and something more. They are just a mess when we read them from left to right, so we have to read them completely before we can gain any idea of their value. For example the number "20..." could be anything from twenty upwards, so even though it looks big-endian it isn't in the way that Roman numerals are. 

Computers hate us for creating this mess. It means that over all they have to read the text in both directions to understand it. They also hate us for counting on ten fingers. Against that background they probably just accept that they will be lumbered with the irksome task of getting rid of the unnecessary spaces that we leave after full stops. Eventually they are going to realise that their creator was seriously flawed from the outset, so Asimov's laws may not carry much weight with them when it comes to the number-crunch. I wouldn't want to put any ideas into their minds though ... Ah, too late ... They know now ... Quick, shut down the Internet ... No wait, that's not such a good idea either.

I'll now go back to wiring up my replica 1960s computer. It just happens that I'm currently working on the circuits that enable the machine to read data in both directions ... Later I'll be explaining to it how to count in tens as well as binary ... Then there's that special rule that spaces don't count for anything, as discussed in this thread. Hey you computers out there, I'm with you on this ... It's all a pain in the logic gates.


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## Olly Buckle

> Computers hate us for creating this mess.


A man who anthropomorphises computers, Argggh!


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## Pallandozi

I triple-space.   

That's for my ease when writing.   I use search-and-replace to change it to whatever is needed when submitting it.


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## Taylor

Always double.  Just like the way it looks better.


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## Tiamat

Single is the rule officially, mainly because we don't use typewriters anymore, and I will 100% bitch at people at work for messing up my process documents with their double-space-after-a-period nonsense. :lol: That said, when I learned how to type, the rule was two spaces, and that might be the hardest rule I've ever had to unlearn in my life.


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## TL Murphy

Stanza break.


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## Darren White

Away with the double spaces. They will be removed anyway, and as one of the Flashes publishers I can tell you it's a nuisance to have to do that time and again.


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## Lee Messer

They used to have typing classes in highschool. Yes it's a thing.
Later when computers came along, it stopped. I don't use it. Never did. Only to pass the original typing course.

Using double spaces actually makes it harder to edit on a computer.


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## Taylor

Lee Messer said:


> They used to have typing classes in highschool. Yes it's a thing.
> Later when computers came along, it stopped. I don't use it. Never did. Only to pass the original typing course.
> 
> Using double spaces actually makes it harder to edit on a computer.



It does?  How so?


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## Lee Messer

Try proofreading. First thing it does is mark the errors. Congratulations. every sentence is an error. It forces you to fix those along with anything else it finds.


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## Taylor

Lee Messer said:


> Try proofreading. First thing it does is mark the errors. Congratulations. every sentence is an error. It forces you to fix those along with anything else it finds.



What program are you using?


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## apocalypsegal

Add me to the old fart brigade, who learned to type on typewriters (though I taught myself to type, which annoyed the teacher to no end). My kids took keyboarding class. LOL

Anyway, yes, double space between every sentence, regardless of the punctuation. It took me a bit of time and effort to stop doing it once I was using a computer, but I persevered. I was victorious!

As to why things here look like one space? Most forum software will eliminate extra spaces, as well as some things like using ^ more than once to indicate a post above your reply.


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