Forum: SDL Trados support
Topic: Studio 2015: Ensuring two spaces are inserted after segments
Poster: Roy Oestensen
Post title: Try explaining to the PM that double space is wrong in English
[quote]Hendrik Michaelson wrote:
However many of my clients require that two spaces be inserted after the English full stop.[/quote]
This is a remnant from the time of typewriters with monospaced fonts. I would suggest you refer the PMs to "The PC is not a TYPEWRITER" by Robin Williams (1992). As he writes, "Use only one space after periods, colons, exclamation points, question marks, quotation marks--any punctuation that separates two sentences." (page 13).
His explanation is as follows:
"On a typewriter, all the characters are monospaced ... you [therefore] need to type two spaces after periods to separate one sentence from the next. But . . .
"On a computer, most typefaces use proportional characters ... So with proportionally-designed typefaces you no longer need extra spaces to separate the sentences."
In short: Whenever you use proportional characters, i.e. where the letter i takes 1/5 the space of m, using double space after a period is plain wrong today, also in English.
Roy
[Edited at 2017-04-17 10:09 GMT]
Topic: Studio 2015: Ensuring two spaces are inserted after segments
Poster: Roy Oestensen
Post title: Try explaining to the PM that double space is wrong in English
[quote]Hendrik Michaelson wrote:
However many of my clients require that two spaces be inserted after the English full stop.[/quote]
This is a remnant from the time of typewriters with monospaced fonts. I would suggest you refer the PMs to "The PC is not a TYPEWRITER" by Robin Williams (1992). As he writes, "Use only one space after periods, colons, exclamation points, question marks, quotation marks--any punctuation that separates two sentences." (page 13).
His explanation is as follows:
"On a typewriter, all the characters are monospaced ... you [therefore] need to type two spaces after periods to separate one sentence from the next. But . . .
"On a computer, most typefaces use proportional characters ... So with proportionally-designed typefaces you no longer need extra spaces to separate the sentences."
In short: Whenever you use proportional characters, i.e. where the letter i takes 1/5 the space of m, using double space after a period is plain wrong today, also in English.
Roy
[Edited at 2017-04-17 10:09 GMT]