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Snarf Posted 13 years ago
Essay & Composition Writing

Using Ellipses in Word with Justification in Novel Writing

Hello. In writing and editing a novel within Word while using "justify," is it okay to have a space before and after an ellipsis (like most style guides say to have), even though, due to the justification, those two spaces end up being bigger than the spaces between the dots? Word automatically sets the spaces between the dots, making sure that they always end up on the same line, which is good. However, even though those spaces between the actual dots remain the same from line to line, the spaces between the words varies from line to line due to the justification. In most cases, the difference in the spacing between those before and after the ellipses is not much different than that between them. Except, most of the time, the former—that is, the spaces between the words—is greater than that between the latter (the dots), with some lines having the difference be much greater than others. Is that normal, though, or does that look unprofessional? If the spaces between the dots varied in accordance with the justification of a given line in proportion to the way the spaces between the words did, this wouldn't be an issue, but that's unfortunately not the case: One is always changing, and the other is always the same.

Thanks.
  
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