diff --git a/compiler/rustc_ast_pretty/src/pprust/state.rs b/compiler/rustc_ast_pretty/src/pprust/state.rs
index 545b98a9135af..f02fe4cf0a728 100644
--- a/compiler/rustc_ast_pretty/src/pprust/state.rs
+++ b/compiler/rustc_ast_pretty/src/pprust/state.rs
@@ -681,22 +681,40 @@ pub trait PrintState<'a>: std::ops::Deref<Target = pp::Printer> + std::ops::Dere
         }
     }
 
+    // The easiest way to implement token stream pretty printing would be to
+    // print each token followed by a single space. But that would produce ugly
+    // output, so we go to some effort to do better.
+    //
+    // First, we track whether each token that appears in source code is
+    // followed by a space, with `Spacing`, and reproduce that in the output.
+    // This works well in a lot of cases. E.g. `stringify!(x + y)` produces
+    // "x + y" and `stringify!(x+y)` produces "x+y".
+    //
+    // But this doesn't work for code produced by proc macros (which have no
+    // original source text representation) nor for code produced by decl
+    // macros (which are tricky because the whitespace after tokens appearing
+    // in macro rules isn't always what you want in the produced output). For
+    // these we mostly use `Spacing::Alone`, which is the conservative choice.
+    //
+    // So we have a backup mechanism for when `Spacing::Alone` occurs between a
+    // pair of tokens: we check if that pair of tokens can obviously go
+    // together without a space between them. E.g. token `x` followed by token
+    // `,` is better printed as `x,` than `x ,`. (Even if the original source
+    // code was `x ,`.)
+    //
+    // Finally, we must be careful about changing the output. Token pretty
+    // printing is used by `stringify!` and `impl Display for
+    // proc_macro::TokenStream`, and some programs rely on the output having a
+    // particular form, even though they shouldn't. In particular, some proc
+    // macros do `format!({stream})` on a token stream and then "parse" the
+    // output with simple string matching that can't handle whitespace changes.
+    // E.g. we have seen cases where a proc macro can handle `a :: b` but not
+    // `a::b`. See #117433 for some examples.
     fn print_tts(&mut self, tts: &TokenStream, convert_dollar_crate: bool) {
         let mut iter = tts.trees().peekable();
         while let Some(tt) = iter.next() {
             let spacing = self.print_tt(tt, convert_dollar_crate);
             if let Some(next) = iter.peek() {
-                // Should we print a space after `tt`? There are two guiding
-                // factors.
-                // - `spacing` is the more important and accurate one. Most
-                //   tokens have good spacing information, and
-                //   `Joint`/`JointHidden` get used a lot.
-                // - `space_between` is the backup. Code produced by proc
-                //   macros has worse spacing information, with no
-                //   `JointHidden` usage and too much `Alone` usage, which
-                //   would result in over-spaced output such as
-                //   `( x () , y . z )`. `space_between` avoids some of the
-                //   excess whitespace.
                 if spacing == Spacing::Alone && space_between(tt, next) {
                     self.space();
                 }
diff --git a/compiler/rustc_expand/src/mbe.rs b/compiler/rustc_expand/src/mbe.rs
index 32d12c4fd0cc9..08d4a03945489 100644
--- a/compiler/rustc_expand/src/mbe.rs
+++ b/compiler/rustc_expand/src/mbe.rs
@@ -68,6 +68,8 @@ pub(crate) enum KleeneOp {
 /// `MetaVarExpr` are "first-class" token trees. Useful for parsing macros.
 #[derive(Debug, PartialEq, Encodable, Decodable)]
 enum TokenTree {
+    /// A token. Unlike `tokenstream::TokenTree::Token` this lacks a `Spacing`.
+    /// See the comments about `Spacing` in the `transcribe` function.
     Token(Token),
     /// A delimited sequence, e.g. `($e:expr)` (RHS) or `{ $e }` (LHS).
     Delimited(DelimSpan, DelimSpacing, Delimited),
diff --git a/compiler/rustc_expand/src/mbe/transcribe.rs b/compiler/rustc_expand/src/mbe/transcribe.rs
index 3901b82eb52ec..8a084dcb4fe3a 100644
--- a/compiler/rustc_expand/src/mbe/transcribe.rs
+++ b/compiler/rustc_expand/src/mbe/transcribe.rs
@@ -253,8 +253,23 @@ pub(super) fn transcribe<'a>(
             mbe::TokenTree::MetaVar(mut sp, mut original_ident) => {
                 // Find the matched nonterminal from the macro invocation, and use it to replace
                 // the meta-var.
+                //
+                // We use `Spacing::Alone` everywhere here, because that's the conservative choice
+                // and spacing of declarative macros is tricky. E.g. in this macro:
+                // ```
+                // macro_rules! idents {
+                //     ($($a:ident,)*) => { stringify!($($a)*) }
+                // }
+                // ```
+                // `$a` has no whitespace after it and will be marked `JointHidden`. If you then
+                // call `idents!(x,y,z,)`, each of `x`, `y`, and `z` will be marked as `Joint`. So
+                // if you choose to use `$x`'s spacing or the identifier's spacing, you'll end up
+                // producing "xyz", which is bad because it effectively merges tokens.
+                // `Spacing::Alone` is the safer option. Fortunately, `space_between` will avoid
+                // some of the unnecessary whitespace.
                 let ident = MacroRulesNormalizedIdent::new(original_ident);
                 if let Some(cur_matched) = lookup_cur_matched(ident, interp, &repeats) {
+                    // njn: explain the use of alone here
                     let tt = match cur_matched {
                         MatchedSingle(ParseNtResult::Tt(tt)) => {
                             // `tt`s are emitted into the output stream directly as "raw tokens",