I'm not going to get into the debate over one-vs.-two, as that will generate
a loooong thread, but I'll explain about the fonts. If you have ever used a
typewriter, most likely the text you produced was monospaced; that is, every
letter was the same width. Typewriter typefaces are designed so that they
don't look too weird with an i or l (or period) the same width as an m or w,
but the result is certainly distinguishable from a printed book. Print
typefaces have always been proportional; that is, the type character was
only as wide as necessary for the letter, so some chunks of type are wider
than others. Some typewriters could also produce proportional type, but they
were in a significant minority.

The huge majority of computer fonts are proportional. Of the core fonts
supplied with Windows, Times New Roman and Arial are the best-known
proportional fonts. Courier New is a monospaced font, beloved of law offices
and bulk mailers because it makes their documents look typed (though why
anyone would prefer that is beyond me). Generally speaking, proportional
fonts (and ragged right, not justified) are easier to read. Whether adding
an extra space between sentences improves readability or not is subject to
endless debate (you can also get into arguments about whether serif or sans
serif fonts are easier to read).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"BorisS" wrote in message
...
and if anyone can explain what proportional fonts are, I'd be curious as
well. My rationale is quite a simple one...the people I am producing this
for like to see a certain amount of space between two sentences. I am
guessing by its name that "proportional" fonts means that spacing actually
adjust?

Let's take a real example. If I wanted EXACTLY 3cm between two sentences
(just picking a number, and assuming that is what is equal to two regular
spaces), how would I accomplish that?

Keep in mind, I also have to full justify the paragraphs I write, so I
don't
know if that'll affect the answer given.

Thanks to whomever is providing the education on this (I guess Graham?).

--
Boris


"Tony Jollans" wrote:

I have now (long since) adjusted to using a single space but, purely out
of
interest, what is the logic of this?

I understood that double spacing was used to make the gaps between
sentences
more noticeable. How do proportional fonts obviate the need for this?
The
full stop in most fonts is less obvious than in fixed width typewriter
fonts
and the insignificant gap provided by a single space does not clearly
mark
the sentence. Is it just that proportional fonts are easier to read
anyway,
and therefore we don't need any extra help, or is there some other
reason?

--
Enjoy,
Tony


"Graham Mayor" wrote in message
...
And I would leave it with a single space as double spaces were for
typewriters and we have moved on a bit since then. We now have
proportional
fonts

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org


Tony Jollans wrote:
I would search for period, space, (not space) - and replace it with
period, space, space, whatever the (not space) was. To do this:

Find . ([! ]) - that's period, space, left parenthesis, left
bracket,
exclamation mark, space, right bracket, right parenthesis

Replace . \1 - that's period, space, space, backslash, one

Check Use Wildcards
Hit Replace All

You can record code for it if you want.


"BorisS" wrote in message
news I need to do a find and replace on all single spaces after periods,
and replace with two spaces. The problem, of course, is that if I
do just a straight period-space conversion, I will include the
places that already have a period and two spaces after them (with
the find just ignoring the second space in its search).

How can I indicate that I only want it to find periods with a space
and some character after the space, as the find criteria? And then
also importantly, how do I tell it to replace the period-space with
period-two space, and then leave the character untouched?

Thanks.
--
Boris