Month: November 2013

One or two spaces after a sentence?

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Two spaces after a sentence is a holdover from the days before computers and desktop publishing. Typewriters used mono-spaced fonts where every letter had an equal amount of horizontal space. Adding two spaces after a sentence made mono-spaced lines easier to read. However most every font on a PC or Mac uses proportional typesetting so typing two spaces after a sentence are no longer needed yet old typewriter habits still continue. In proportional typesetting skinny letters are given less space than wide ones, white space between letters takes on a balanced appearance. Without the extra white space characteristic in mono-spaced type, breaks between sentences stand out in proportional typesetting without the need for two spaces after a line. Here are some articles with more information on the issue of one or two spaces after a sentence:

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2011/01/space_invaders.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_spacing
http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/how-many-spaces-after-a-period
http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/typespacing/a/onetwospaces.htm
http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/spaces-period-end-of-sentence.aspx

Naming files for the web

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Here’s an interesting article about naming files for the web: http://www.ragepank.com/articles/50/spaces-underscores-and-dashes-how-to-name-files/

It seems that dashes may be the best way to separate words in a URL. A dash provides better readability than an underscore. Spaces are a bad idea to use because they turn into %20 in a URL and can be misinterpreted by some browsers.

Here’s another article about spaces in filenames and why they should be avoided in web content: http://www.blackbaudknowhow.com/blackbaud-sphere/spaces-in-filenames-and-why-you-should-avoid-them-on-the-web.htm