Microsoft is Right! There Should Only Be One Space After a Period.

When I was learning the finer points of publication design back in autumn 1994, Bridget told me not to type “two spaces” after periods. 

She had designed a number of items for the therapy practice where she worked, and had read a book called “The Mac is Not a Typewriter” by Robin Williams (not the famous actor). Williams argued that a single space after periods was appropriate in digital design. 

We were both college students at the time taking “Publication Design & Graphics” — a course I really enjoyed (even though the instructor — who was teaching the course for the first time — told me I should “try taking the class sometime” since I tended to ask Bridget for advice instead of him). 

In the early years of our marketing communications business, Bridget and I produced several monthly print newsletters for clients. The businesses and organizations would typically submit articles as Word docs or plain text files (we’d also get some WordPerfect files during that era). 

We’d spend time doing a “find and replace” to eliminate double spaces after periods prior to importing the text files into our layouts in Adobe PageMaker and Adobe InDesign. 

During my years in high school, a typing class was something that was encouraged for students. It seemed as if most students took the course in that era. We had it in ninth grade and were actually the first class in the school district to take typing classes on DOS-based computers. 

Speaking of typewriters, here is Bridget’s vintage machine. It was kind of nice to be able to pull this baby out of storage for the blog post: 

The “two-spaces-after-a-period” method is a relic of the days when typewriters were the common tool used to compose documents. Because of the monospaced/uniform nature of fonts on those machines, you needed to have two spaces after a period to clearly show where a sentence ended. 

When Apple’s original Macintosh computer was introduced in 1984, it changed the way the world formatted documents. The bundled fonts were proportional, and you could control things like tracking, leading, and width in text blocks. 

Yet to this day, it is still debated as to whether two spaces after a period is better than one. 

You can count me firmly in the one-space camp. 

It appears one-space advocates have found an ally in Microsoft. The Verge reported on April 24 that Microsoft “has started to update Microsoft Word to highlight two spaces after a period as an error, and to offer a correction to one space.” 

Microsoft Word makes the suggestion via the Editor on the desktop version of the app. You can ignore the suggestion if you prefer, but I'd recommend you take the advice. 

When you are dealing with text in narrow text blocks (ex. publications that have columnar layouts), using one space after a period can make the overall flow better. Two spaces is “overkill” in modern page layout programs. 

My personal opinion is that a single space after a period makes publications more attractive and pleasing to the eye. 

For example, here are two text blocks I setup in Adobe InDesign 2020 — part of a 4-column layout on a 8.5" x 11" page with the text (11-point Palatino) set to “justified.”

I typically justify the text in the publications we create (it sometimes requires a little more work when setting up styles, but the finished product looks clean and balanced). 

In the two blocks below, you can see how adding “two spaces” after periods creates “big” gaps between sentences (if you are viewing on mobile, you can click the picture below to view in full resolution): 

Here’s a close up version of the spaces after the first sentence in the sample text blocks. You’ll see how much more appealing a “single space” after the period looks (if you are viewing on mobile, you can click the picture below to view in full resolution):

After nearly a quarter-century doing layout and design for print and digital platforms, removing two spaces after periods (and replacing with a single space) has become a habit. Combined with the finer grammar points outlined in the “AP Stylebook,” it helps you create attractive documents and publications. 

It was one of the first lessons I learned when I was studying digital pagination in college. It is a valuable tool to have in your design arsenal. 

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Metro’s Beautiful Construction Education Center Serves Vital Trades

I often hear that jobs “in the trades” — construction, plumbing, electrical, HVAC repair, automotive maintenance, and manufacturing — go “unfilled” because of a lack of trained workers. 

I remember when I was in junior high school. It was required that we take shop class. We built things like carbon dioxide-powered race cars and pasta measuring tools. 

Bridget will tell you that skill-based courses have typically been the ones I’ve favored. Being a journalism major in college, courses like “Photography” and “Publication Design & Graphics” had more relevance to me than the myriad of theory-type courses we took as undergraduates. 

We had an opportunity to tour Metropolitan Community College’s Construction Education Center located at the Fort Omaha campus site in northeast Omaha on Thursday, Nov. 15 as part of the Omaha Press Club’s Noon Forum series. 

Dr. Nate Barry, Dean of Career and Technical Education at MCC, talked to our group about the need for properly skilled workers in the construction trades. 

“It is the first time in 30 years that construction projects are not getting done due to a lack of workers,” Barry says. 

Construction projects aren’t delayed because of a dearth of funding, according to Barry. Rather, the necessary workforce isn’t in place to complete those projects in communities around the United States. 

And the jobs aren’t going away...  

MCC’s Construction Education Center is part of a “community effort” trying to solve this issue in Omaha. The state-of-the-art facility is part of a $90 million building project that includes a new student center and the Center for Advanced and Emerging Industries (the curriculum focuses on 21st century careers like cyber-security). 

The construction building houses various construction trades under one roof, which means trades such as plumbing, electrical, and HVAC are in the same location as welding, civil engineering, construction, and architectural technology. 

This allows for a “co-mingling” of disciplines, and instructors co-teach classes so the students are ready to work in the industry — and have the ability to interact with other trades during future professional pursuits.  

The Construction Education Center features glass walls and exposed ceilings so students can get an idea of how plumbing (“Wet Walls”) and electrical systems are structured throughout the building. 

It was fun to get to experience some of the student workspaces while touring the Construction Education Center. 

This is the “residential” HVAC lab with functioning furnaces and AC units for students to work on:

The complex has a “store” with a variety of tools, parts, and supplies so students can become comfortable working with items they'll use in the workforce:

There is an electrical lab allowing students to run wire and conduit through studs, and hook up a variety of electrical items like outlets, doorbells, alarm systems, and ceiling fans: 

The facility’s “showcase” area is a two-story, glassed-in workspace (right off the main lobby) that allows students to build a 1,600 S.F. home — referred to as a “capstone project.” 

The effort allows students from different trades in the school to work together on the project — a culmination of their training at the Construction Education Center. 

The home is then transported to a neighborhood in the community for homeowner to enjoy (the house is sold by a real estate agent, and a foundation uses the money to fund a similar project). 

Barry told attendees that 50 percent of the $90 million project was funded with private donations. 

As a graduate of the University of Nebraska at Omaha, I often find myself preaching the value of a 4-year degree. While there is value in receiving your BS or BA, there are numerous jobs available requiring technical training that can be served by motivated workers coming from associate degree programs at junior colleges and trade schools.

These are good paying jobs. 

In the marketing communications business Bridget and I own, graphic design, photography, web design, basic HTML coding, and writing skills are integral to the work we do — the skills needed to compete have changed over the past 22 years.  

Institutions like Metropolitan Community College allow the Omaha workforce to get the skills-based training needed to stay competitive. 

Projects like MCC’s Construction Education Center are a benefit to our community. 

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