Notepad++ is good, though there may be some obscure setting tripped in your copy that would cause the double spacing. (If you remove the double spaces and save/close the file and upload, does it have double spaces again when you reopen it? Or when you download from your site and reopen?)
The failure of the flag is baffling, since your tpl_main_page.php shows the mechanism in place to use it.
Is your file currently using the "in_array" on just the right column, or the $this_is_home_page on both columns? (I'm not sure which behavior is currently showing.)





