Automatic Spacing

Enabling Automatic Spacing under Automatic Spacing Options allows Instant Text to automatically add spaces after punctuation marks and expansions.

Spacing after Punctuation Marks

The number of spaces added after a punctuation mark can be configured in the Automatic Spacing Options.

Spacing after Expansion

The number of spaces added after an expansion is dictated by the last character of the expansion:

Tentative spaces

The spaces added by Instant Text are called tentative spaces because Instant Text may still remove them automatically afterwards, if the key you type next indicates that they were most probably unwanted.

For example, if you type three periods in a row, you will notice that Instant Text will remove the tentative spaces inserted after the first and the second period. Typing numbers or times, are also cases where you will see that Instant Text removes the tentative spaces after the period, the comma or the colon. Type the following items, slowly, just to see how Instant Text adds and removes tentative spaces, while you type:

Unwanted Spacing

In case Instant Text is not able to guess, that Automatic Spacing is indeed unwanted, you may either avoid it by temporarily toggling it off, and then back on again, or you may let Instant Text add the spaces and remove them yourself, on the fly, by backspacing.

Inhibit Spacing after an Expansion

You can inhibit Automatic Spacing after an expansion, with a No Spacing After Expansion directive.

Inhibit Spacing after a Punctuation

You can selectively turn off Automatic Spacing completely for a given punctuation mark, by specifying zero as the number of spaces to be added, in the Automatic Spacing Options.

See also:

Typing Acronyms