On Fri, 28 Jan 2000, "Ar't" <psi2494@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: [...] > Most of plugins place ":" in different positions > "bla bla:" > "bla bla: " > "bla bla :" > "bla bla : " > etc. > Is it possible to choose one (more likely the first one) > and post it somewhere from where people could read it and change their > sources. Note that each language has its own typography rules. For example, in English there should be no space before the colon and one space after it: "blah blah: hello" But in French there should be a space before and after the colon: "bla bla : bonjour" Well, that's for text printed with a non-proportional font. If you have a proportional font and full control over the spacing (i.e. being able to use half-spaces or en-spaces and em-spaces), then the rules are even more subtle. There are several books documenting that, and I think that the TeX book has a paragraph about it. But for fixed-width fonts, I think that the following rules apply: - For English, no spaces before any punctuation marks except for the opening parenthesis, brackets or quotes. Always one space after every punctuation mark. Note that I personally prefer to have two spaces after a full stop, ellipsis, exclamation mark or question mark but I know that some word processors like FrameMaker forbid this. - For French, this is more or less the same as for English, except that ":", "!" and "?" take exactly one space before them and this should be a non-breaking space (note that there is a space before ":" but not before ";"). If there are any typesetters on this list, feel free to flame me if I am wrong. Just to be on the safe side, I repeat that the rules listed above are for fixed-width fonts only. -Raphael
