Microsoft Word is one of the most basic yet crucial software in Microsoft’s product ecosystem. With its primary function revolving around document editing, Word has now become even more versatile with smart, efficient, and professional writing processing tasks. Not to mention, with humanity’s endless creative mind, Word sometimes even transforms into a tool for simple yet eye-catching art.
However, there is an underground battle among Word users around the world that you may have never noticed or paid attention to: After a period, should we hit the space bar once or twice?
Personally, when I was in school, I was taught that after a period or any other punctuation mark, we only need to hit the space bar once. Looking at it broadly, the four most popular typing manuals in the world agree with this style, including the Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications (Microsoft’s original document), The Chicago Manual of Style, The Associated Press Stylebook, and The Gregg Reference Manual. However, there are also people who prefer to hit the space bar twice after punctuation, aiming to make paragraphs look more spacious, easier to read, and better to separate sentences.
Recently, Microsoft quietly released a small update for Word, officially confirming that the “one space” method is the most standard for document editing in this software. If users intentionally hit the space bar twice after a period, they will receive an error message just like other typing mistakes. User Alan Chen on Twitter wrote: “Those who support ‘one space’ have won. Now Microsoft Word will consider the ‘two spaces’ method after a period as an error“.
It’s not by chance that many people still use the “two spaces” method, contrary to Microsoft’s own typing guide. Before Word and computers became as popular as they are today, people used typewriters to draft documents. At that time, hitting the space bar twice after a period was a standard rule and widely used. However, stepping into the modern era, this rule has gradually become outdated and is almost ineffective in spacing paragraphs anymore.
When Word and many similar software were introduced, the design team had to study very carefully each typeface, the spacing between characters (kerning) to best suit the user’s vision. This allows them to read text continuously for a certain period without discomfort or eye strain. And just one space after a period is enough. Two spaces are excessive, even counterproductive as readers will have to shift their eyes to the right for too long to find the next sentence. If it’s just a short paragraph, it may not be a big issue. But for a lengthy document spanning several pages, the “two spaces” method can become extremely annoying for the reader’s eyes.
However, not everyone immediately accepts that Microsoft Word officially considers hitting the space bar twice after a period as an error. And on Twitter, the battle between these two stylistic camps is still ongoing and quite intense.
“Good! We no longer need these typewriter folks. I have to deal with a lot of paperwork at the company, and I often refuse to accept documents that use two spaces after a period.”
“Consistency and efficiency have triumphed. The two-space method after a period is a relic from the typewriter era.”
“Ridiculous. We need two spaces after every period, unless we have to cut back to meet a 280-character limit. With ‘two spaces’, the clarity of the text increases significantly.”
And immediately, Justin Fair’s opinion was countered: “I find your two-space tweet harder to read because my brain is distracted by the double spaces. It’s not that I’m difficult or anything, but that’s the truth.”
According to news.softpedia