RE: [Groff] Two spaces after sentences.

[Ted Harding]

On 27-Feb-03 Christian Jensen wrote:
> 
> According to CSTR 54
>       'An input line ending with ., ?, or !, [...] is taken to
>       be the end of a sentence, and an additional space character
>       is automatically provided during filling.'
>       (Section 4.1)
> 
> This (rather old-fashioned) practice of adding extra space after
> sentences is sometimes unwanted. The suggested method to prevent
> it is to add \& to the end of the input line, but this is impossible
> when processing text automatically and undesirable even with manual
> editing.
> 
> Is there a way to disable the extra space character after sentences
> completely?

In groff you don't need the awkward UNIX troff suggestion. Use

.ss 12 0

>From "man troff":

       .ss m n
              When two arguments are given to the ss request, the
              second  argument gives the sentence space size.  If
              the second argument  is  not  given,  the  sentence
              space size will be the same as the word space size.
              Like the word space size, the sentence space is  in
              units  of  one  twelfth of the spacewidth parameter
              for the current  font.   Initially  both  the  word
              space size and the sentence space size are 12.  The
              sentence space size is used in  two  circumstances:
              if  the  end  of  a sentence occurs at the end of a
              line in fill mode, then both  an  inter-word  space
              and  a  sentence space will be added; if two spaces
              follow the end of a sentence in  the  middle  of  a
              line,  then  the  second  space  will be a sentence
              space.

Ted.


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Date: 27-Feb-03                                       Time: 09:44:15
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