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Depending on whether a period or exclamation point or question mark is inside or at the end of a sentence, slightly less or more space is inserted after a period in a typeset manual. Since it is not always possible to determine automatically when a period ends a sentence, special commands are needed in some circumstances. Usually, Texinfo can guess how to handle periods, so you do not need to use the special commands; you just enter a period as you would if you were using a typewriter: put two spaces after the period, question mark, or exclamation mark that ends a sentence.
Use the @:
command after a period, question mark, exclamation
mark, or colon that should not be followed by extra space. For
example, use @:
after periods that end (lowercase)
abbreviations which are not at the ends of sentences.
Also, when a parenthetical remark in the middle of a sentence (like
this one!) ends with a period, exclamation point, or question mark,
@:
should be used after the right parenthesis. Similarly for
right brackets and right quotes (both single and double).
For example,
foo vs.@: bar (or?)@: baz foo vs. bar (or?) baz
produces
foo vs. bar (or?) baz
foo vs. bar (or?) baz
@:
has no effect on the HTML or Docbook output.
Do not put braces after @:
(or any non-alphabetic command).
A few Texinfo commands force normal interword spacing, so that you
don’t have to insert @:
where you otherwise would. These are
the code-like highlighting commands, @var
, @abbr
, and
@acronym
(see Useful Highlighting). For example, in
‘@code{foo. bar}’ the period is not considered the end of a
sentence, and no extra space is inserted.
Next: Ending a Sentence, Previous: Multiple Spaces, Up: Inserting Space [Contents][Index]