The guilt of double spaces between sentences

I learned 'keyboarding' on a manual typewriter. Kidding, no there weren't any personal computers around when I learned to type. But one typing convention has still stuck with me, 2 spaces after a period.

It's a typographical faux pas. And we're told that typing two spaces before the start of a new sentence is absolutely, unequivocally wrong.

It makes sense to do it on a typewriter because it's one and only font was mono spaced. Every letter whether 'W' or an 'i' took up the same amount of space. This makes for very open-looking spacing, so the convention of adding an extra space between sentences was established to achieve a noticeable separation between sentences.

I can't even remember the last time I typed on a typewriter.

Nearly all computer fonts (except Courier) have proportional spacing, which means that the width of the characters and the spacing surrounding them are in proportion to each other. Proportional spacing results in a more even, balanced appearance. Because of this, a single space is considered enough to create the necessary visual separation between sentences.

I don't necessarily agree. Check out these two samples of typed text. The one in yellow is typed with 2 spaces after the period, the green only one space. I find the top easier to read!

It's what I used to; I know. 'Easier to read' trumps typographical etiquette. But it does mean that I'll need to check the use of double spaces in my marketing materials.

Since working in the digital age, we are now the typesetter as well as the designer and writer. It’s our responsibility to make sure the final copy is the ultimate in readability. If that means being free of double spaces, so be it.

My proofreaders catch it. It's easy to fix using the application's search-and-replace feature to replace double with single spaces.

But not easy to catch in this blog. And I'm finding myself half using and half not, which is even worse.