Thin space

The narrow spaces (English thinspace ) is used in typography for optical breakdown of a coherent group of characters.

Use

The narrow spaces to improve the readability of a confusing group of characters, such as multiple-digit numbers, or abbreviations. Through the use of narrow spaces single character groups are quickly recognizable and look better proportioned. In contrast to the usual space but it should reveal the unity of the group clearly.

In the text, set it also contributes to reducing unwanted hole and lane formation, which may worsen otherwise the legibility of entire paragraphs.

Another use is the use in equations and formulas, such as 3 | | 6 ␣ ␣ = 5 | | 4

Legend:

Wordwrap

By definition, a line break is not allowed in a narrow space. In contrast, an ordinary space between words - a word space - set. At the word space and the break is allowed.

By excluding a narrow space still retains its fixed width, while the expansion of the spaces between words is slightly enlarged. The reason is that otherwise in a row 12 345 could be, however, in another row might arise if the margin flush 98 765. But that would not be apparent that it is a cohesive, similar five-digit number in both cases.

Digital texts

Only with the Unicode character sets are narrow spaces for electronic publications become available, for which there are two encodings:

First two characters are possible for German typography; there is no optical difference. The width is one-sixth of the basic character width (em ) amount, but also one-eighth would be permissible.

In the former character U 202 F, the text system is to prevent a line break at this point directly; the second character U 2009 a break is allowed, as well as broadening of the space character as justified. However, because in an articulated by narrow space group of characters must never done a line break and no broadening is desired is for the body text, only the first coding ( U 202 F) in question.

In English, the em dash are deducted from the neighboring words with an even narrower "hair space", U 200 A ( decimal 8202 ).

Office communication

For business letters and other business documents typists to DIN 5008 are to take a narrow space character, use the non-breaking spaces. This is a compromise between the fast writing and an attractive design.

Transitional solutions

This development is still very young; the character representation as well as the correct interpretation is not made ​​correctly from any software by far. With automatic line break is to make sure that no separation occurs. However, the rules for this are possibly not yet implemented correctly in the software. If the narrow space is interpreted as an unknown case character, would not be wrapped and that would be exactly the desired effect.

In most proportional fonts, the protected space is represented not too wide, can thus be used without too much interference substitute.

In the context of HTML, there are different methods to simulate a protected narrow spaces. A simple method is to halve the font size of a simple non-breaking space ():

However, there are browsers that the width of the non-breaking space towards the bottom limit (typically 0.25 em), so this method fails.

Reliable can be achieved using the design

Produce a white space of arbitrary width, but not part of the text, that is, if the text is marked on the HTML page and is copied, is in its place there is no space in the clipboard. For numbers with digit grouping, this is quite advantageous as for screen reader and for the re-use of numbers in other applications such as spreadsheets, the space would be disturbing. Therefore, even preferable to the narrow non-breaking spaces for digit grouping in HTML this solution. If the span construction used as a substitute for the narrow spaces - ie when the abbreviations, etc. - however, it is useful for the text to be copied an invisible narrow spaces or surrogate in the white space to "hide", like so:

The following sentence is an application of the methods shown here:

In some browsers, the nature of white space by tagging the text can be seen with the mouse.

Using Microsoft Word

So far there is no general solution for word processing programs from Microsoft.

In some fonts ( eg " Palatino Linotype " ) may, under Insert → Symbol are the characters selected with the hexadecimal code 2009 in Unicode format. This character can now be assigned to a key combination (eg Ctrl Alt spacebar). By pressing these buttons is in the text now this symbol that a narrow (not upheaval -protected ) corresponds to spaces used. For other fonts ( such as "Times New Roman " ) is at the appropriate procedure with the hexadecimal code 202F in Unicode format and a small upheaval - breaking space generated. This is due to the fact that the current versions of these fonts will be gradually equipped with many of the Unicode character. The supplied standard "Arial " and " Times New Roman " are occupied today relatively many encodings.

As a substitute auxiliary construction, however, can use the key combination Ctrl Shift Spacebar -breaking spaces are created, which then using Insert → Font → Character Spacing → ​​scaling (older Word versions ) or by selecting the non-breaking space and subsequent selection of Right Mouse Button → Font → scaling is set to a width of 50 %.

With \, a narrow space in LaTeX can be inserted. It is a narrow non-breaking space. The text can not wrap at this point, which is in most applications (eg, abbreviations ) desired.

Example:

\ documentclass { article} \ begin { document} An example looks like \ eg like this. \ end {document } Others

In the lead sentence one Space was used. The traditional typographic rules for this ( letter spacing ) shall apply mutatis mutandis to the narrow time and space.