Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

I have used OO for about 12 years, first on Win98 then XP. Now I have Win10. Whenever I try to type more than two spaces in a row in a text doc or spreadsheet, I am not permitted to. The spaces just won't type. I haven't run into this in the past. Please help/direct me to a post where someone else has run into the problem. Thanks!

Try under Tools -> Auto Correct Options
Options tab
Ignore double spaces

I have this unchecked, and have no problems entering multiple space characters

OMG. Thank you!

I don't know whether it had been checked or not originally, but I had edited several options recently. Then before I posted above, I reviewed and edited many options, including under auto-correct. Just now, I unchecked the box you advised, in spite of the illogic, and it worked.

Thank you again. Odd that telling OO to not ignore double spaces resolved the issue.

Double spaces in a text mean 'mispelling errors' for the spellchecker functions.
Why you using the double spaces?
Avoid to use double spaces. Use the 'indent' at the begin of the lines/paragraphs; use user defined TAB-s in the applied paragraph styles; etc...

Thank you.
I need a variety of spaces. I separate ideas and words with multiple spaces. It helps me arrange things and set them off from each other. It's not for anyone else's eyes -- just mine

Zizi64 wrote:Double spaces in a text mean 'mispelling errors' for the spellchecker functions.
Why you using the double spaces?
Avoid to use double spaces. Use the 'indent' at the begin of the lines/paragraphs; use user defined TAB-s in the applied paragraph styles; etc...

I use double spaces after a full stop to visually mark clearly each sentence; this is not in keeping with the rules of the Chicago Manual of Style but it is the way I like my text set out. Language tool marks these with a blue wiggly underline.

This is also the way I was taught that sentences should be separated in typing class back in school (early 1980's).

Aficionados of the Chicago Manual of Style are now sticking pins into wax dolls labelled with our names! When learning manual typesetting of lead type I was taught that a full stop should always be followed by a larger space than the interword spaces of a sentence; the easiest way in word processors is to use the double space.

When learning manual typesetting of lead type I was taught that a full stop should always be followed by a larger space than the interword spaces of a sentence; the easiest way in word processors is to use the double space.

Unfortunatelly this will be "not too aesthetic"/"not very clear" in a 'justified' document because of the automatic space scaling.

As a newbie on this site, I probably shouldn't be indulging in this off-topic subject, but since it's been started, I will because I feel pretty strongly about using only one space between sentences. Note that I, too, was taught in high school decades ago to use two spaces.

As an editor of text not requiring the use of any style manual, I am frustrated by double spaces. It slows down my reading, and I have to correct single and triple spacing for double-spacing consistency.

This article is informative and humorous:
http://www.slate.com/articles/technolog ... aders.html

Here's a nutshell quote:
"Hundreds of years ago, some typesetters would end sentences with a double space, others would use a single space, and a few renegades would use three or four spaces. Inconsistency reigned in all facets of written communication; there were few conventions regarding spelling, punctuation, character design, and ways to add emphasis to type. But as typesetting became more widespread, its practitioners began to adopt best practices. Felici writes that typesetters in Europe began to settle on a single space around the early 20th century. America followed soon after."

A more detailed quote:
"The problem with typewriters was that they used monospaced type—that is, every character occupied an equal amount of horizontal space. This bucked a long tradition of proportional typesetting, in which skinny characters (like I or 1) were given less space than fat ones (like W or M). Monospaced type gives you text that looks "loose" and uneven; there's a lot of white space between characters and words, so it's more difficult to spot the spaces between sentences immediately. Hence the adoption of the two-space rule—on a typewriter, an extra space after a sentence makes text easier to read. Here's the thing, though: Monospaced fonts went out in the 1970s. First electric typewriters and then computers began to offer people ways to create text using proportional fonts. Today nearly every font on your PC is proportional. (Courier is the one major exception.) Because we've all switched to modern fonts, adding two spaces after a period no longer enhances readability, typographers say. It diminishes it."

jehpta wrote: As an editor of text not requiring the use of any style manual, I am frustrated by double spaces. It slows down my reading, and I have to correct single and triple spacing for double-spacing consistency.

One can use OO's Find and Replace to speedily remove all instances of multiple spacing from a document if that is one's desire.

My earlier remark about word count was intended to give an easy method towards calculating number of pages occupied by a given number of characters. I did not develop the point further as "page" is not standardised, any more than the margins used or the size and interline spacing of the font used; these will vary from user to user.

In any event the old rule applies, "de gustibus non est disputandum."