how to double space in microsoft word processor

The logic goes: An extra space after a period helped distinguish one sentence from another in a typewriter’s fixed-width typeface (similar to the font Courier New). Most modern lore cites typewriters as a practical explanation for the double-space habit. Some legal writers still insist on two spaces, as well, but the American Bar Association recommends a single space. Of the major guides, APA Style - which guides some academic writing - was the lone hold out in the two-spaces camp until 2018, when its seventh edition finally recommended one space. Writers and editors tend to have serious feelings about grammar, style and usage - like whether the Oxford comma is necessary - but any editor worth her salt will admit no single rule about how we write is universally correct or incorrect. But no Grammar Goddess has ever carved this or any rule into stone. It’s one of hundreds of miniscule style choices publishers, writers, editors and style guides make about their content. Most style guides, which lay out the norms for how industries including book publishers, newspapers and academics write, have made the switch to favor a single space between sentences. Two spaces after a period is not incorrect - nor is it correct. Is a double space after a period actually incorrect?

The update is included with the premium version of the company’s new Editor, a browser extension and new Word feature that makes spelling, grammar and style suggestions akin to tools like Grammarly and ProWritingAid. Word will now flag two spaces after a period with that dreaded Spellcheck-style squiggly line and suggest a single space to replace it, The Verge reports. Its verdict? Two spaces after a period is out. Maybe this will snuff the flames on this decades-old dumpster fire: Microsoft Word, that powerhouse in word processing, has finally weighed in on the great space debate.

I know you’re duty-bound as a wordsmith to engage in a raging debate about sentence spacing now that I’ve brought it up. Sorry for derailing your day and that of the poor non-writers in your household. Do you use one or two spaces after a period?

How to double space in microsoft word processor