Re: [libreoffice-users] Can't find setting

At 08:23 15/08/2013 -0400, James Knott wrote:
> I have long been in the habit of putting a double space between sentences.

Indeed - and so have I.

> I learned that in a typing class, IIRC.

Yes, but was that on a typewriter, where double spaces make sense?

> What's the proper procedure in LO?

It's entirely up to every user what s/he does, of course.  There are 
two main points, I think.

o I would suggest that two spaces are probably useful with 
fixed-pitch text as on a typewriter, especially when the 
sentence-ending full stop will be spaced so far from the last 
character of the sentence.  So that's why we all learned that 
way.  But that no longer applies with proportional fonts.  (I still 
use double spaces in e-mail messages, since I send them as plain text 
and have no control how they are displayed by recipients.)

o In justified text, there is no such thing as a "single space" 
anyway: the size of the space between words depends on what happens 
to occur in the line.  So there is no meaning to "two spaces" either: 
your word processor may permit you to include two consecutive space 
characters, but two spaces on one line could end up narrower than a 
single space on the next.

I'm really only throwing out the ideas, of course: it's up to 
individuals what they choose to do.  (You'll have noticed my 
emoticon.)  But it is worth dissuading novice word processor users 
not to attempt to use multiple spaces to indent text, for example: 
apart from being messy, this again will simply not work effectively 
in justified text or when rendered on another system..  The original 
questioner asked about "a series of spaces" (not necessarily double); 
he could have been attempting to line up text in columns, where he 
should (and could easily) have been using tabs or tables instead.

Brian Barker


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