Do You Double Space After A Period

The story of spaces after periods is often told as though monospaced typewriter fonts needed two spaces after a sentence for good readability and that the wide availability of proportional fonts on computers led to the switch to one space.

Do you double space after a period. Once considered an advanced form of technology themselves older typewriters were known to produce uneven or unpredictable line spacing. Unless you are typing on an actual typewriter you no longer have to put two spaces after a period. Double spacing after every period used to be standard.

Science has definitively found that. Typing two spaces after a period is totally completely utterly and inarguably wrong. Illustration by tara haelle the nation was rocked this week by a paradigm shattering study.

If you didn t learn to type on a typewriter you re likely using two spaces after the period because you re modeling the writing of someone who did learn to write on a typewriter. And yet people who use two spaces are everywhere their ugly error crossing every social boundary of class. Before computers and word processors were prevalent most people relied on typewriters.

Two spaces were once the norm. Or an exclamation point. The point is it s not only widely accepted it s expected that you use only one space after a period.

And according to nearly all stylebooks including the associated press stylebook and the chicago manual of style you always use a single space after a period. Sorry two spaces it s time to make the switch. Do you see where the single spaces stop and the double spaces begin.

Or a question mark. This is called monospaced typesetting. Back when we used typewriters every character was given the exact same amount of space on the page.