Who remembers the ‘two-space rule’ from high school keyboarding (a.k.a. typing) class? You know – it’s the one where you’re supposed to put two spaces after every sentence-ending period (and also after certain colons that break sentences up). ((From what I understand, this rule isn’t even taught much anymore.)) So of course, this little rule doesn’t apply to web documents, as a general rule, since HTML formatting compresses everything down to just one space after a sentence-ending period, no matter how many spaces you actually type. I’ve always thought this ends up making things look pretty scrunched and claustrophobic. Well, I’m pleased to say that I’ve now adopted a “new WordPress plugin”:http://coffee2code.com/wp-plugins/extra-sentence-space/ that adds that extra space back in and puts end-of-sentence formatting back to the way it should be. I gotta say, I love it.
Two Spaces
by Jim Stitzel | Apr 17, 2008 | General | 2 comments
I still type two spaces after every sentence. I wish more people did that. It makes blogs and websites much easier to read.
@jayne d’Arcy: Well, Jayne, you have to realize that just because you type two spaces doesn’t mean that you get two spaces. The way HTML works is that it compresses it all down to a single space. Hence the reason why I like this plugin – it retains those two spaces.
You’re right, though; it would be nice if every blog and website found a way around the single-space like this.