When typing, how many spaces follow a period, question mark or exclamation point?

lanfranco

I was taught to type two spaces at the end of a sentence, since only one is used between words. Jul 26 07, 12:38 PM

billythebrit

British universities dictate that in the submission of assignments, essays, etc then two. But let's face it. Just as I'm doing here. One is enough. I suppose it depends on the purpose of your writing and who it's for. Each publishing house has their own rules on style of printing. No two are the same. Oxford University Press insists on things Penguin never would. But to be on the safe side, if your piece is of a matter of importance, then two. Jul 26 07, 12:46 PM

Baloo55th

When I'm doing it, it depends on circumstances. Only one after a comma - that's definite. After a full stop (or other terminator like ? or ! I sometimes use one or two. Some fonts look better with one, some with two. If actually typing as on a typewriter using a font where all letters take the same space, put two after a full stop. On a computer, if using a font where the letter i takes less space tham m, two look better sometimes. If using justified text, where the left and right sides of the text are both straight, then it doesn't really matter. It takes a good eye to spot which has been used sometimes! If left justified only, look at the font you're using and decide which looks better. Source of info: professional experience.... Jul 26 07, 2:49 PM

queproblema

I was taught to put two spaces at the end of a sentence and after colons and semi-colons. Two young keyboard instructors in my universe, however, (no, not "university") have never heard of such a convention. Consequently the students they train turn in papers that look poorly done to me, which must make me a genuine old fogey. How did that ever happen?? http://www.westminster.edu/staff/nak/courses/spaces.htm Also, type in "two spaces after periods, colons, semi-colons" to Google and see all the articles about this issue. Wikipedia calls it "French spacing" and says it's only used in English! Jul 26 07, 4:43 PM

red_stone

I believe that you use two spaces after each when typing. Jul 26 07, 11:39 PM

Baloo55th

I only use one space after colon and semi-colon. They are intermediate place punctuation, unlike full stop, exclamation and query which are terminators. One space either side of a dash - but none when the - is a hyphen. When I was working on Apple Macs, I used a long dash for dash and a short dash for hyphen. Macs are designed to do things like that without all the hassle Microsoft systems have - either typing numbers in to get a long dash, or having to go to Special Characters if you're using OpenOffice. Jul 27 07, 4:10 PM