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Originally Posted by BetterRed
@Tex2002ans - the author of the Heraclitean River blog and I are like minded in that he and I would prefer 1.5 spaces between sentences rather than one or two.
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There was a bunch of "double-space after sentence" discussion in these TeX topics too:
https://tex.stackexchange.com/questi...ween-sentences
https://english.stackexchange.com/qu...riod-full-stop
There are also these Wikipedia articles I just stumbled upon (plus check out those Related Articles):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senten..._digital_media
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histor...ntence_spacing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senten...d_style_guides
Side Note: It is quite interesting to learn, there used to be double-spacing between colons and semi-colons as well.
I tended to agree with the Heraclitean arguments... He makes QUITE the case for the double-space. The double-space DOES serve a purpose that is different from a single space between words.
BUT (and this is a big but), I tend to think the economic argument he gave is just the strongest argument against using the double space:
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The death knell for the large sentence space, still imitated by a few Linotype operators in the mid-1900s with a double space, was more new technology. Further automation developed in the era of phototypesetting led to a situation where line breaks and extra spaces were truly problematic. Automatic line breaks could occur between two spaces, thereby beginning a new line with an undesirable empty space. The solution for programmers was simple: phototypesetters would simply ignore extra white space and treat it as an error. All white space would be collapsed to a single, multipurpose space.
[...]
In sum, the primary rationale behind the shift was probably not aesthetic, since printers had accepted the same conventions for centuries. Instead, it was a move generated by economic concerns. Publishers wanted cheaper books with less whitespace and less time and expertise to typeset, and the technology they developed required simpler and lazier methods of spacing.
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It is just a complete pain in the butt to add in nbsp after every single sentence, and it is VERY hard to automate. I would probably toss it along the same lines of the "Smarten Punctuation" algorithms, you would get a huge amount of false positives: think abbreviations, shortened names, etc., etc.
Also, keep in mind, you may have something like a footnote symbol, or page number, or reference in parenthesis after the period that "ends a sentence". How the heck are you going to automate fixing the spacing in THAT situation?
Now, if you DO have a clean source, that you KNOW uses double-spacing correctly, I would agree with the Heraclitean article again:
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Typographers could actually make good use of all those people who still insist on double-spacing. They could use a find-and-replace to turn those double spaces into custom spaces that provide a nice respite after ends of sentences. Whether it’s actually double or 1.5 times or whatever would be a matter of taste, considered with the typeface, leading, etc.
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In my whole experience though... most of the actual source material you get CANNOT be trusted. Just like 99% of the Word documents you receive will not be using Styles, if they do use Styles, they (in many cases) wouldn't be used 100% consistently, I wouldn't trust the authors with a ten foot pole with the horrors I have seen.
You also have entire generations of "brainwashing" to single-space usage, that who knows who is using the double-space method correctly.
Too many errors in too many source documents, that it is easier for me to toss everything out, and start from scratch. Like with Toxaris's EPUB Tools, just strip EVERYTHING down to the bare bones h1-6, p, b, i, blockquote, and continue from something you KNOW is clean/consistent.
It would take too long to figure out the intricacies of THIS particular author's (crappy or not) usage of the tools, or to reverse engineer THIS particular set of unique calibre## classes, or reverse engineer THIS particular set of InDesign/Quark classes, and figure out how to implement them in my workflow.
Perhaps if you had a workflow that you could completely trust... like an editor/typographer that knew what they were doing, you get used to THEIR exact style/workflow. So you could hand them a document, they would clean it for you, and you KNOW that you are getting some consistent input. I guess a tightly knit group of workers would be able to pull something off like that, sort of like what I do, I just work in a handful of small teams (2-5 people), and we get used to eachother's styles.
Although even in that case, I don't trust ANY source fully (I am always running Regex and catching mistakes that were made).
Quote:
Originally Posted by BetterRed
I just feel more comfortable if the space between sentences exceeds the space between words. I edit to two spaces using a regular space & a non breaking space. If I wanted 1.5 spaces what would you suggest I use.
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Bleh, with nbsps all over the place, the HTML would get too mangled, and it would create too much of a pain to search/edit directly in the code in my opinion. So the HTML case, I would just abandon it.
With a word processor or text editor, meh, I don't see too big of a deal if you use the double-space or single-space between sentences. Do whatever you are comfortable with.
If you are dealing with something typographically more advanced than a word processor, you most likely already have access to more advanced tools, like variable-width spaces, variable-width fonts, and more advanced microtypography (like squeezing/stretching characters by tiny fractions).
Although again, I would take the advantages of easily searchable/readable/maintainable code, over adding in too many manual interventions. I would leave the style decisions up to the heuristics of the program though, and I would take variable-length spacing between sentences over strict "double-spaces" any day of the week.
Perhaps my mind will change the more I learn about typography. I must admit, I am currently barely scratching the surface in the "physical" side of things, I still have a ton to learn.
Most of my work is just focused on getting the text out of locked down formats, and getting these books into a reflowable format!
Also, working from OCR doesn't help, I just strip out ALL nbsps generated by Finereader, because 99.9% of the cases, it is trash, then I can add them in if/when needed.