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Personal website of Gregory K. Maxey, Commander USN (Retired)

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The purpose of this Microsoft Word Tips & Microsoft Word Help page is is not to solve or even enter the debate on the proper spacing to use after full stop punctuation. Some people prefer one space and others prefer two. My purpose is to provide a simple macro that users can run after they have completed their document to automatically set two spaces after each full stop punctuation mark (i.e., a period, and question mark, or an exclamation mark)

Sub TwoSpacesAfterSentence()
Dim oRng As Range
  Set oRng = ActiveDocument.Range
  With oRng.Find
    .ClearFormatting
    .MatchWildcards = True
    .Text = "(*{2})([.\!\?]) ([A-Z])"
    .Replacement.Text = "\1\2  \3" 'Two spaces between 2 and \
    .Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
    .Text = "([.\!\?]) {3,}([A-Z])"
    .Replacement.Text = "\1  \2"
    .Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
    'This should prevent most cases of improper double spacing
    'in names (e.g., F. Lee Bailey, George W. Bush, etc.)
    .Text = "([!A-Z][A-Z].)  ([A-Z])" 'Two spaces between ) and (
    .Replacement.Text = "\1 \2"
    .Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
  End With
lbl_Exit:
  Exit Sub
End Sub
    

See: Installing Macros for instructions on how to set up and use the macros provided in this Microsoft Word Help & Microsoft Word Tips page.

That's it! I hope you have found this tips page useful and informative.

This page was last updated on March 09, 2021

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