Mind the Gap: Remove Extra Character Spaces in Your Web Content

Putting.  Two.  Spaces.  Between.  Sentences.  Is.  Distracting.

Why? Because a word processor is not a typewriter.

Two spaces were used back in the days of typewriters, when each character took up an equal amount of space (called "monospacing"). "Two spaces, it was believed, made it easier to see where one sentence ended and the next began," writes Jacci Howard Bear, on About.com. "Today, with the prevalence of proportionally spaced fonts, some believe that the practice is no longer necessary and [is] even detrimental to the appearance of text."

If you want your online content to look as clean as possible, then use only one space after a period between sentences. If you find the two-spaces habit hard to break, or if you're editing someone else's work, use the Find and Replace tool in Microsoft Word to close those unsightly gaps. Simply type two character spaces in the "Find" field and one character space in the "Replace" field and click "Replace All."

Comments

[Susan Maricle]

Old habits die hard! Whenever I review a Word document on my computer, I do a search and replace, searching for two spaces and replacing them with one space. Never fails to turn up a handful of instances.

Susan Maricle
poultryandprose.typepad.com/blog/

[Lostinfrance75.wordpress.com]

Some of us learned to type on a *real* typewriter. Remember "rat, cat, tat?" I broke the habit after word processing came into use, but I still know a good number of people who still double-space after a period.

[Blog]

I'm afraid I was taught double spaces as part of my touch-typing, so they happen whether I want them or not!!

Of course, HTML will roundly ignore any excess spaces you put in :)

[Deborah Vajda]

Yes, I immediately noticed that scripts use two spaces! It must be a holdover from typewriter days. When you look at the typeface formatting on scripts, it looks monospaced. It will be interesting to install Final Draft and find out if that's the case. Do you have Final Draft? Being the IT person you are, maybe you can look at the html and let me know what you find out.

[Jeanne Estridge]

Great explanation! I've been trying to break the double-space habit, but it's pretty ingrained. That will be a final draft requirement, though.