You may think it's redundant to spend time explaining how to use the period, but when you consider the title of this post you'll see there's room for confusion.
The period is probably the first punctuation mark we learned as children. Its concept was, and still is, quite clear. It indicates a full stop at the end of a sentence.
But then things got a little trickier when we were told that a period also follows an abbreviation. Now I understand that this use is waning, perhaps more in Europe than in North America.
So, today we might see either Mr or Mr., Prof or Prof., and either is considered correct. Just be consistent.
Again, a word of warning. If your abbreviation might lead to confusion, best to use a period to make it clearly understood as an abbreviation.
For example: The third amend. is under revision. (amend. is an abbreviation of amendment).
Be aware that autocorrect will capitalize the letter that follows the period you place after an abbreviation. In the above example, I had to change the "i" of the word "is" to a lower case because autocorrect sensed I was beginning a new sentence and capitalized it.
You'll need to watch out for this kind of error, and amend it. (No period required here because amend is not an abbreviation in this context).
And just in case you didn't know, when typing sentences, it is now correct to leave only one space between them. Years ago, we always used two spaces.
To be continued . . . .
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