Re: [Groff] Two spaces after sentences.

[Alejandro Lopez-Valencia]

At 10:03 a.m. 27/02/2003 +0100, 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?

I think this is what you want, as mentioned in groff(7):

.ss N     Space-character size set to N/12 of  the  spacewidth  in  the 
current font.
.ss N M   Space-character  size set to N/12 and sentence space size set to 
M/12 of the spacewidth in the current font (=1/3 em).

You could copy tmac/troffrc to your site-tmac directory and tweak it there 
(Perhaps, troffrc-end is more appropriate?)

BTW, I think CSTR 54 is misleading. In Barron and Rees (1987)[1] when 
referring to this mechanism the description they give matches that of the 
description in groff(7), not CSTR 54: Fixed predetermined spacing set to 
1/3 em space in the current font, no glue possible (stretchable space as 
used in TeX).

[1] See troff.org for full reference citation.

--
Alejandro Lopez-Valencia                         tora no shinden
python -c "print('ZHJhZHVsQDAwN211bmRvLmNvbQ=='.decode('base64'))"