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This is very insightful. I am not a professional typographer but to my eye, the problem is really with the period. It should really be treated as a modification to the previous character rather than a separate full-stop character. This way the spacing would work as designed. \setuppapersize[A8] \starttext Mr. \vrule John Doe Mr\kern-.1em.~\vrule John Doe \setuplanguage [en] [spacing=packed] Mr. \vrule John Doe Mr\kern-.1em.~\vrule John Doe \stoptext Maybe this would be better handled with a macro. Clyde From: Wolfgang Schuster [mailto:wolfgang.schuster.lists@gmail.com] Sent: Sunday, October 28, 2018 11:54 AM To: mailing list for ConTeXt users; Clyde Johnston Subject: Re: [NTG-context] Typesetting abbreviations You can disable the bigger space at the end of a sentence with the spacing key from \setuplanguage but as you can see from the example below ~ creates a normal space. \setuppapersize[A8] \starttext Mr. \vrule John Doe Mr.~\vrule John Doe Mr.\nobreakspace\vrule John Doe Mr.\ \vrule John Doe Mr.\narrownobreakspace\vrule John Doe \blank Mr. \vrule John Doe \setuplanguage [en] [spacing=packed] Mr. \vrule John Doe \stoptext Wolfgang Clyde Johnston schrieb am 27.10.18 um 23:04: What is the correct way to typeset an abbreviation in ConTeXt? The space after the full stop seems too big and if I use \thinspace, I cannot use ties. No command - space is too big \starttext Mr. John Doe \stoptext With tie - space is too big \starttext Mr.~John Doe \stoptext With \thinspace - looks right except at an end of line \starttext Mr.\thinspace John Doe \stoptext Any suggestions are welcome! Thanks, Clyde ____________________________________________________________________________ _______ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : mailto:ntg-context@ntg.nl ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://context.aanhet.net http://context.aanhet.net archive : https://bitbucket.org/phg/context-mirror/commits/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ____________________________________________________________________________ _______