An annoying thing...

[Rik]

...well, for me, at least.

In Xara, you can type:
Hello.

And you can type:
Hello..

But, if you type:
Hello...

Then, all of a sudden, the three full stops become one item.

Is that any way of stopping this?

[haakoo]

It's in the auto correct options under the the spell checker button.

[Acorn]

Immediately press Ctrl+Z.
Disable or remove the ellipsis substitution in the AutoCorrect feature.
Type two dots, a space and a dot; delete the space.
...

^ visual pun.

Acorn

[Rik]

It's in the auto correct options under the the spell checker button.

Thanks, haakoo.

It's been bugging me for ages and ages and ages!

[gwpriester]

I always type an ellipse with spaces so . . . vs ...

The proper ellipse is seldom used in contemporary typography

[Acorn]

I always type an ellipse [sic] with spaces so . . . vs ...
The proper ellipse is seldom used in contemporary typography

If you do that, you need to set non-breaking spaces or future edits may break the fake ellipsis.
A non-breaking space is a pain to type in: Alt+0160 on the number pad.
An ellipsis is a genuine form of punctuation and so screen-readers can offer up its correct semantic meaning to those visually impaired.
An ellipsis glyph is only one em wide so it can easily become lost or overlooked.

You are trading 5 characters for one. I accept that it is more impactful, especially if you also want to kern the spaces or track the collection.
My personal solution, I have mapped ... to … . . . in Auto correction with hard (Alt+0160) spaces so I can pick either. Auto correction doesn't handled Kerning or Tracking.

https://creativepro.com/dot-dot-dot/ is worth a read.

Acorn

[gwpriester]

If you do that, you need to set non-breaking spaces or future edits may break the fake ellipsis.

This makes the assumption that the text into which the ellipses have been inserted are either for text that is not proofread/edited, or for the web.

I use improper ellipses when doing books.

[mwenz]

Gary, while I have seen spaced ellipses in printed work, I have seen what are likely proper ones just as much.

I think, for myself, one reason why certain publishers prefer spaced periods (though to me they often look like thin spaces have been inserted versus full spaces), is in many/most typefaces true ellipse characters are too compressed. They should have more space before/after and in between. In short, the should cause the text, and hence the reader, to "breathe." To let the reader to pause long enough to fill in the "blank."

Anyway, this issue has been around a long while.

[Acorn]

This makes the assumption that the text into which the ellipses have been inserted are either for text that is not proofread/edited, or for the web.[…]

Gary, no assumption was made or implied. Change a font, its size or embolden something, all can push the fake ellipsis over the edge. If it is worth doing it for one environment correctly, it has to be right to do the same elsewhere too.

Acorn

[mwenz]

Being a layout person, I wouldn't want to shift the burden of a breaking ellipsis onto a proofreader.

However, other than repurposing a hardback to a smaller paperback book, I have rarely been tasked with changing typefaces (which can cause the same type of breakage) or font size by the time I'm laying out a book or during the layout of the same. Pretty much size and leading is determined by the time I get the job. But it has happened, especially when laying out a book for lay people. Just not for actual publishing houses.

While print and the web have certain correlations, they are different--an exception would be when I've been tasked with converting a print publication to a reflowable eBook, which pretty much has direct correlation to the web.

But overall, I agree with Acorn. There are simple methods to ensure an ellipsis using periods and spaces do not break and if I was inclined to use that method, I would insert non-breaking thin spaces before/after and in between the periods. But what is more common for me is to alter the font's ellipsis to a wider proportion if/when needed. I make all my fonts to have a wider ellipsis characters (more space to each side and in between).

Compare most Apple supplied fonts (looking at you, San Francisco) versus say Times New Roman or even Arial. The ellipsis character in San Francisco is very compressed versus TNR/Arial.