Multilingual Typesetting Note: Punctuation Marks

What do you think of this tweet?

Hmm, I'm not convinced.

Two spaces between sentences is a mistake, Microsoft rules, aiming for thoroughness with "Word". https://t.co/hP1PPHrcgt @cnn_co_jp from

- Taro Kono (@konotarogomame) April 29, 2020

I understand the feeling. For those who have experience with Western type, being criticized for double spacing at the end of a sentence may feel uncomfortable. As a typesetter, I would like to welcome this change as it saves time and effort.

Bad Example

Improvement Plan

One space after punctuation marks

Punctuation marks are symbols that indicate pauses in a sentence. The order of separation becomes stronger in the following order: ",", ";", ":", ".". A full stop (period) is used as the end of a sentence. There should be no space between the previous character. Only one space should be left after. Do not leave more than two spaces here. This is because if there are more than two spaces, it will create uneven gaps and disrupt the rhythm of reading the text, making it look like there are holes in the text.

In 19th century typesetting, large spaces were used between sentences. In the 20th century, typists achieved the same effect by double-spacing. However, these methods are not compatible with modern typesetting. Even in the 21st century, we still encounter double-spaced text manuscripts, but when typesetting, we replace them with a single space instead of just flowing them in. The habits of typewriters and the rules of typesetting are completely different.

It is possible that Mr. Kono is not satisfied because he has learned European typesetting, but has never done typesetting with movable type or DTP. At the time of the manuscript, there is no problem even with two spaces, but when it comes to typesetting, he must be satisfied with one space.

Punctuation marks vary depending on the language.

French is different from English in that a space is required before a colon or semicolon. In Arabic, commas and semicolons are placed above, not below. Japanese tends to use "、／。" but in horizontal writing, it can also be "，／．" or "，／。". In Chinese, the placement of punctuation marks differs between mainland China and Taiwan. And in some languages like Thai, there are no punctuation marks at all.

Bonus: Dotted Line

When connecting table of contents and index items to their references with dotted lines, do not use middle dots or ellipses. In Japanese, it may feel natural to place the dots in the center of the characters, but in English, they should be placed on the baseline. In this case, it is better to have a moderate amount of spacing between the dots to avoid a cluttered appearance. Additionally, it is perfectly acceptable to not use dotted lines at all, and it is common to see typesetting that is not aligned with tabs.

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Main Reference Materials

Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style (4th ed.), 2012

Kobayashi Akira, "The Background and Usage of Western Fonts", Art Publishing Company, 2005

Takaoka Masao, "Fundamentals and Etiquette of Western Typesetting", Bijutsu Shuppan-sha, 2010