: Double space acceptable after period before abbreviated title? It seems accepted amongst typographers that the double space after a period is a dated artifact of monospace typewriters, but is it

@Welton168

No. Neither typographers nor editors would permit your example to survive a manuscript.

EDIT: If I were forced to use such a configuration, I would kern the punctuation marks to minimize the yawning chasm created visually by the excessive counterform spaces.

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@Chiappetta793

Ok, three things:


Single spaces after periods is recommended in the AP Stylebook, the Modern Language Association style guide and the Chicago Manual of Style. Go with that. Nothing is more distracting than something that looks like a grammar error, so single spacing is your best bet.
That said, consistency is king. If you use double spaces after periods, always use double spaces. If you use single spaces, always use single spaces. The abbreviated title here doesn't matter; just do whatever you did in the rest of the document.
If you're dealing with this issue in a headline, use the single space and achieve balance with careful kerning and word spacing adjustments. I agree that the single space looks a bit awkward if I stare at it long enough, but the double space looks worse. It's way too heavy-handed.

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@Lengel450

I preface answers like this with the disclaimer that you can do whatever you want with English, really. Make up a word and get enough people to say it, and it'll find its way into the OED. You can learn all of the technical rules of typography, or you can pull a David Carson and blow up all of the rules. Language is really cool like that, and English's heritage in particular is just that: constant evolution.

That being said, I have never seen an instance where one document intentionally contains single and double spaces after periods. So, doing so would be very unconventional.

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@Speyer780

NO, no, no, no, no. Double spaces are never necessary when using proportional fonts. Not if your sentences are one word each, two words each, two paragraphs each, or six pages long.

The best way to typeset those two exact sentences in a proportional font is correctly: with one space after the period.

Two spaces just makes my eye trip. Genuinely. I feel myself tripping over the D of Dr. and doubling back to figure out why there's such a gap between the sentences.

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