<P> This 1960 quotation is the result of some contemporary research: </P> <P> French spacing is tight spacing with equal word spacing throughout a line, i.e., no extra space after a period, colon, etc . The purpose is not only to create a tighter looking, evenly colored page, but more important, to avoid rivers . In some ad shops, French spacing is understood to mean optically equal word spacing . As to the "French" part of the term, this style has nothing to do with France as verified by several French cultural societies and printers . The word was evidently used because anything "French" was considered to be du haut style . </P> <P> A key change in the publishing industry from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century was the enormous growth of mass - produced books and magazines . Increasing commercial pressure to reduce the costs, complexity, and lead - time of printing deeply affected the industry, leading to a widening gap between commercial printing and fine printing . For example, T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land was originally published by a high - volume commercial printer according to its house rules and it was not until its third publication that Eliot was satisfied with its typesetting . The underlying reasons were: </P> <Ul> <Li> ease and speed, since far less physical type and more importantly far less skilled effort was required </Li> <Li> cost, since fewer man - hours were required and the condensed text required less paper; the bulk of the cost saving was typesetting - related rather than paper - use - related </Li> <Li> cultural, since new typesetters (and readers) had grown up with typewriters and the standard typists' spacing approximations of good typesetting </Li> </Ul>

When did it change from two spaces after a period to one