 The European Union 's <unk> 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 <unk> ( 2007 ) , first published in 1966 by the Commonwealth Government <unk> Office of Australia , <unk> that only one space is used after " sentence @-@ closing punctuation " and that " <unk> 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 . " 
