Thanks, David. 

I had not realized that there was a command \fixedspaces. Is it documented somewhere?

The sample file
\starttext
\fixedspaces

A. E. Samuel\crlf
A.\ E.\ Samuel\crlf
A.~E.~Samuel

\stoptext

still produces the same spacing for “A. E. Samuel” and  “A.\ E.\ Samuel”. The spacing in “A.~E.~Samuel” is visibly larger.

We seem to have lost a very fundamental TeX feature here—and gained others of questionable value such as the increased spacing after “)”.

Is there a way for a user to (re)define or customize such spacing issues?

Alan
On Jul 17, 2008, at 09;46,18 , David wrote:

On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 07:46:21 -0400, Alan Bowen wrote:

Thanks, David. I tried

\starttext
A. E. Samuel\crlf
A.\ E.\ Samuel\crlf
A.~E.~Samuel

\stoptext

and can see no difference (ConTeXt  ver: 2008.07.14 18:07 MKII). The  
tilde is not really a good way for me to go. The problem is that I  
publish a journal in which the bibliography is punctuated mainly by  
“.” Introducing tildes (which make spaces non-breaking) would affect  
the line-breaking negatively.

Oh - sorry about that.

What happens if you use your preferred way, but add the command
\fixedspaces somewhere previously in the document?

I've discovered that this command is now required to get either the \ .
or the ~. to have any effect for me. The problem is, I don't know how
to turn it off afterwards. :-)

David
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