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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> <html> <!-- Created by GNU Texinfo 6.8, https://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/ --> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> <!-- This manual is for GNU Texinfo (version 6.8, 8 June 2021), a documentation system that can produce both online information and a printed manual from a single source using semantic markup. Copyright (C) 1988, 1990-1993, 1995-1999, 2001-2021 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License". --> <title>Ending a Sentence (GNU Texinfo 6.8)</title> <meta name="description" content="Ending a Sentence (GNU Texinfo 6.8)"> <meta name="keywords" content="Ending a Sentence (GNU Texinfo 6.8)"> <meta name="resource-type" content="document"> <meta name="distribution" content="global"> <meta name="Generator" content="texi2any"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width,initial-scale=1"> <link href="index.html" rel="start" title="Top"> <link href="Command-and-Variable-Index.html" rel="index" title="Command and Variable Index"> <link href="index.html#SEC_Contents" rel="contents" title="Table of Contents"> <link href="Inserting-Space.html" rel="up" title="Inserting Space"> <link href="_0040frenchspacing.html" rel="next" title="@frenchspacing"> <link href="Not-Ending-a-Sentence.html" rel="prev" title="Not Ending a Sentence"> <style type="text/css"> <!-- a.copiable-anchor {visibility: hidden; text-decoration: none; line-height: 0em} a.summary-letter {text-decoration: none} blockquote.indentedblock {margin-right: 0em} div.display {margin-left: 3.2em} div.example {margin-left: 3.2em} kbd {font-style: oblique} pre.display {font-family: inherit} pre.format {font-family: inherit} pre.menu-comment {font-family: serif} pre.menu-preformatted {font-family: serif} span.nolinebreak {white-space: nowrap} span.roman {font-family: initial; font-weight: normal} span.sansserif {font-family: sans-serif; font-weight: normal} span:hover a.copiable-anchor {visibility: visible} ul.no-bullet {list-style: none} --> </style> </head> <body lang="en"> <div class="subsection" id="Ending-a-Sentence"> <div class="header"> <p> Next: <a href="_0040frenchspacing.html" accesskey="n" rel="next"><code>@frenchspacing</code> <var>val</var>: Control Sentence Spacing</a>, Previous: <a href="Not-Ending-a-Sentence.html" accesskey="p" rel="prev">Not Ending a Sentence</a>, Up: <a href="Inserting-Space.html" accesskey="u" rel="up">Inserting Space</a> [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Command-and-Variable-Index.html" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p> </div> <hr> <span id="Ending-a-Sentence-1"></span><h4 class="subsection">11.3.3 Ending a Sentence</h4> <span id="index-Ending-a-Sentence"></span> <span id="index-Sentence-ending-punctuation"></span> <span id="index-_002e-_0028end-of-sentence_0029"></span> <span id="index-_0021-_0028end-of-sentence_0029"></span> <span id="index-_003f-_0028end-of-sentence_0029"></span> <span id="index-Spacing_002c-at-ends-of-sentences"></span> <p>As mentioned above, Texinfo normally inserts additional space after the end of a sentence. It uses the same heuristic for this as TeX: a sentence ends with a period, exclamation point, or question mark, either preceded or followed by optional closing punctuation, and then whitespace, and <em>not</em> preceded by a capital letter. </p> <p>Use <code>@.</code> instead of a period, <code>@!</code> instead of an exclamation point, and <code>@?</code> instead of a question mark at the end of a sentence that does end with a capital letter. Do not put braces after any of these commands. For example: </p> <div class="example"> <pre class="example">Give it to M.I.B. and to M.E.W@. Also, give it to R.J.C@. Give it to M.I.B. and to M.E.W. Also, give it to R.J.C. </pre></div> <p>The output follows. In printed output and Info, you can see the desired extra whitespace after the ‘<samp>W</samp>’ in the first line. </p> <blockquote> <p>Give it to M.I.B. and to M.E.W. Also, give it to R.J.C.<br> Give it to M.I.B. and to M.E.W. Also, give it to R.J.C. </p></blockquote> <p>In the HTML output, <code>@.</code> is equivalent to a simple ‘<samp>.</samp>’; likewise for <code>@!</code> and <code>@?</code>. </p> <span id="index-Closing-punctuation_002c-and-sentence-ending"></span> <p>The “closing punctuation” mentioned above is defined as a right parenthesis (‘<samp>)</samp>’, right bracket (‘<samp>]</samp>’), or right quote, either single or double (‘<samp>'</samp>’ and ‘<samp>''</samp>’; the many possible additional Unicode right quotes are not included). These characters can be thought of as invisible with respect to whether a given period ends a sentence. (This is the same rule as TeX.) For instance, the periods in ‘<samp>foo.) Bar</samp>’ and ‘<samp>foo.'' Bar</samp>’ do end sentences. </p> <p>The meanings of <code>@:</code> and <code>@.</code>, etc. in Texinfo are designed to work well with the Emacs sentence motion commands (see <a data-manual="emacs" href="../emacs/Sentences.html#Sentences">Sentences</a> in <cite>The GNU Emacs Manual</cite>). It may help to imagine that the ‘<samp>@</samp>’ in ‘<samp>@.</samp>’, etc., is an invisible lower-case letter ‘a’ which makes an upper-case letter before it immaterial for the purposes of deciding whether the period ends the sentence. </p> <p>A few Texinfo commands are not considered as being an abbreviation, even though they may end with a capital letter when expanded, so that you don’t have to insert <code>@.</code> and companions. Notably, this is the case for code-like highlighting commands, <code>@var</code> arguments ending with a capital letter, <code>@LaTeX</code>, and <code>@TeX</code>. For example, that sentence ended with ‘<samp>... @code{@@TeX}.</samp>’; <code>@.</code> was not needed. Similarly, in <code>... @var{VARNAME}. Text</code> the period after <var>VARNAME</var> ends the sentence; there is no need to use <code>@.</code>. </p> </div> <hr> <div class="header"> <p> Next: <a href="_0040frenchspacing.html"><code>@frenchspacing</code> <var>val</var>: Control Sentence Spacing</a>, Previous: <a href="Not-Ending-a-Sentence.html">Not Ending a Sentence</a>, Up: <a href="Inserting-Space.html">Inserting Space</a> [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Command-and-Variable-Index.html" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p> </div> </body> </html>