 The European Union 's Interinstitutional Style Guide ( 2008 ) indicates that single sentence spacing is to be used in all European Union publications — encompassing 23 languages . For the English language , the European Commission 's English Style Guide ( 2010 ) states that sentences are always single @-@ spaced . The Style Manual : For Authors , Editors and Printers ( 2007 ) , first published in 1966 by the Commonwealth Government Printing Office of Australia , stipulates that only one space is used after " sentence @-@ closing punctuation " and that " Programs for word processing and desktop publishing offer more sophisticated , variable spacing , so this practice of double spacing is now avoided because it can create distracting gaps on a page . " 
