In computing, a nonbreaking space (NBSP) is a special space character that prevents an automatic line break (line wrap) at its position. It is also known as a hard space or fixed space.
Uses
Here are some situations in which a nonbreaking space should be used. (Note that you will not be able to see the effects of the space unless your screen is fairly narrow.)
- compound proper names: van der Waerden
- titles: Mr. Jones
- parts of a document: Chapter 12
- mathematics: x² + 3
- enumeration of cases in running text: (1) Genesis
- languages such as French when punctuation should be preceded or followed by a space: « Arrętez ! », dit-il.
- measurements (and other numbers with units): the 100 m dash.
Encodings
- In some versions of Extended ASCII, character 255 (0xFF) serves as a nonbreaking space.
- In ISO 8859-1, NBSP is 0xA0.
- In Unicode, it is U+00A0 and is called the No-Break Space.
- In HTML, the entity is written as .
- In TeX, a tilde (~) is used to denote the hard space.
Word processors may use different methods to enter a nonbreaking space on the keyboard and store it in different ways internally. For example, the standard shortcut in Microsoft Word is the CTRL+SHIFT+SPACE combination.
