Don’t Let Microsoft Word Judge You for Using Two Spaces Between Sentences
Microsoft has taken an official position on one of the most controversial issues on the Internet, vigorously going over to minimalism in the “one space versus two spaces after the sentence” debate. Word’s automatic spelling and grammar check will now flag anything other than one space after the period as incorrect, this red squiggly line declares double spacing between sentences grammatically incorrect (at least according to Clippy ).
Regardless of where you feel about this Very Important Question, now is a good time to point out that the sentences of Word grammar are not set in stone: you can change them to suit your writing preferences – even with two spaces. postpartum variety.
Word is great at spotting spelling and grammatical errors, but not all grammar rules are universal, and sometimes your punctuation, word choice, or formatting preferences are artistic choices or otherwise reasonable deviations from the “norm.” Here’s how to change Word to your personal preference.
How to change validation preferences in Word
The easiest way is to right- click the error and select Always Ignore. Word will no longer bother you about this. Another option is to change your Word grammar settings. This takes a few extra steps, but you can also change all of the grammar settings in Word at the same time.
- Open a Word document and go to Home> Options> Review (in the sidebar).
- Scroll down to “Writing style” under “When correcting spelling and grammar in a word” and click “Settings” to open the grammar preferences window.
- In this window, select Grammar and Refinements from the Writing Style drop-down menu.
- Scroll down to “Spaces Between Sentences” at the very bottom and use the drop-down list to select your preference: “Do not check” to ignore spaces after a period, or “one space” or “two spaces”, however you like to write.
You can also change many other settings in this menu, including how Word handles the other favorite punching bag on the Internet, the Oxford comma. Of course, using the double space after the period is undoubtedly wrong, but at least now you know how to change the Word so that it doesn’t catch up with you for your grammatical sins.