Re: Space after Periods

Daniel Miles Kehoe (fortuity!kehoe@uu6.psi.com)
Thu, 1 Jul 93 13:32:59 -0700


Terry Allen writes:
> Rendered text usually has more space after a period that closes
> a sentence than after a period that marks an abbreviation,

> or a comma.

Wait a second.... is the model a typewritten page or a published
page? Typists follow the rule of adding an extra space between
sentences within a paragraph. The rule for books (and by extension,
anything that does not use a fixed-pitch, monospaced font) is to use
the same space between sentences as between words. (I checked the
standard references, both "Words into Type" and the "Chicago Manual
of Style," on this.)

> in Tex you have to escape a period after an abbreviation

I'm not a Tex user, so I don't know why Tex adds the extra space. But
it seems to me that there should be no issue here.

A WWW document (which uses proportional fonts) should have the same
space between sentences as between words.

Besides, it's easier that way.

Regards,
Daniel Kehoe
kehoe@fortuity.sf.ca.us