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The Writer's Desk Book / Being a Reference Volume upon Questions of Punctuation, Capitalization, Spelling, Division of Words, Indention, Spacing, Italics, Abbreviations, Accents, Numerals, Faulty Diction, Letter Writing, Postal Regulations, Etc. cover

The Writer's Desk Book / Being a Reference Volume upon Questions of Punctuation, Capitalization, Spelling, Division of Words, Indention, Spacing, Italics, Abbreviations, Accents, Numerals, Faulty Diction, Letter Writing, Postal Regulations, Etc.

Chapter 50: SPACING
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About This Book

This reference guides writers, editors, and printers through practical rules and examples for punctuation (comma, semicolon, colon, period, dash, quotation marks, parentheses, apostrophe), capitalization, spelling and variant forms, compound words, word division, indention and paragraphing, spacing and italics, abbreviations, numerals, faulty diction, letter writing, and postal regulations. Each section offers definitions, usage guidelines, and illustrative examples, with appendices on standard time, weights and measures, and foreign coin values, designed as a compact desk companion for drafting, editing, and preparing printed correspondence.

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SPACING

EACH line should be spaced evenly throughout.

2. The spaces in a line should never vary more than the difference between a three to em space and an en quad.11

11 See page 60.

3. Uniformity in appearance shows excellence in printing. To have one line thin-spaced and the next wide-spaced is in bad taste. Even in narrow measure this inequality can be avoided with proper care.

4. In fonts of type where ends of hyphens and dashes touch the adjoining letters, hair-spaces should be used. Also use hair-spaces before colons, semicolons, interrogation-points, exclamation-marks, and inside quotation-marks.

5. No space should be left between superior letters, or letters indicating powers, and inferior figures or letters; or between letters forming products.

6. No space should be left between the abbreviations A.D. and B.C., A.M. and P.M., between titles, such as LL.D., Ph.D., etc., or between the abbreviations of States, such {60} as N.Y., R.I., N.H., etc., except in a wide-spaced line.

7. Scripture references should be spaced as follows: II Sam. 1 : 2–6; 2 : 8–12.

8. No space should be left between the symbols $ and £ and the succeeding figures.

9. An indention of one or more ems should be allowed at the end of the last line of a paragraph.

10. The same space should be left on each side of short words, such as a, an, etc.

11. It is poor typography to thin-space or wide-space a line in order to avoid a turn-over.

12. Beginning and ending a line with the same word in wide measure should be avoided, but not at the expense of good spacing.

13. The kerned letters f and j require a hair-space before them when they begin a line. When kerned letters end a line a hair-space is necessary after them to prevent breaking off in printing.

14. Should wide spacing be necessary, it should occur where it will be least noticed; viz., between words ending or beginning with tall letters.

15.This is an en dash: –
This is an em dash: —
This is a 2 em dash: ——
This is a 3 em dash: ———
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16.This line is hair-spaced.
This line is spaced with 5-em spaces.
This line is spaced with 4-em spaces.
This line is spaced with 3-em spaces.
This line is spaced with en quads.
This line is spaced with em quads.