When you are writing something on your computer, what do you do after you put in a period. Do you leave one space or two?
Did you check how many I used? One.
Yet many people use two. In fact, they had it drilled into them when they were in school and learning to type. Some folks have stories of teachers docking marks if they didn’t use two. If you are typing on a typewriter, leaving two spaces is important. Each character is the same width and having two spaces after a period helps to indicate the end of a sentence. People who use two spaces today either learned to type on a typewriter or from someone who did.
If you are typing on a computer and using a word processing program or desktop publishing program, you are most likely using a proportional font where the width of each character is different. As a result, the generally accepted convention these days is that a single space after a space is sufficient. For me, the fact that published material created by professional designers uses a single space is a powerful reason to do so too. If you start paying attention to this detail in what you are reading, you’ll see what I mean.
So learn from the pros, just use a single space after periods. Doing so will also keep your designer happy!
A quick disclaimer: Yes, monospace fonts that work similarly to a typewriter still exist. If you know this fact, I trust that you know if the font you are using requires two spaces after periods and will apply your professional expertise.
