How to type non-breaking space in Microsoft Word? Removing large spaces in Microsoft Word

Users of the Word program may sooner or later encounter a problem such as a large gap between words. This problem is quite well studied and there are many ways to solve it. But in this article we will talk about only one way - how to do non-breaking space in Word 2007. This function very useful, especially if the problem bothers you quite often.

Non-breaking space: hotkeys and their purpose

As mentioned above, to save yourself from the problem of entering long spaces when typing text in Word, you need to use a special space. Now we’ll talk about how to do it in Word.

In order not to beat around the bush, it’s worth saying right away that to enter such a space there is special combination keys - CTRL+SHIFT+SPACEBAR. You can try pressing it yourself. Of course, if there are problems with long spaces If you didn't, then you won't notice the difference (between regular and non-breaking spaces). However, you can use this method everywhere to protect yourself from incorrect document formatting.

Now you know how to make a non-breaking space in Word, but not everyone will be able to remember such a combination or it will simply be inconvenient to enter it every time. To make your life easier, you can use reassignment of these hotkeys. Let's talk about this now.

You need to get to the menu" Special characters". To do this, go to the "Insert" tab, select "Characters" and click "Other". Now in the window, go to the tab we need - "Special characters". Now in the list, find the line "Non-breaking space". Click twice on the field and enter the combination that is convenient for you.

Now you know not only how to create a non-breaking space in Word, but also how to independently assign a key to it. But that's not all we'd like to talk about.

Installing AutoCorrect

If you still experience discomfort when pressing a given key combination, then there is another way to create a non-breaking space in Word. It involves assigning autocorrect. This is very useful option not just for printing non-breaking space.

To begin, you will need to place ( in simple words, copy) the desired element, in our case - a non-breaking space. After this, you need to go to the already familiar “Special Characters” menu. In this window, click on the "AutoCorrect" button, which is located below.

Now you see the AutoCorrect window. You need to enter in the "Replace" field those characters that will be replaced with a non-breaking space, and in the "To" field insert that same space. Be sure to check the "Plain Text" checkbox. After that, click the "Add" button.

So you have learned how to make a non-breaking space in Word, which method to use is up to you. Now let's talk about the special space.

Special space

The principle of how to create a non-breaking space in Word is very similar to creating a special character. At least the essence is practically the same. Use special character in case you want to set a certain distance between letters or words. This symbol, by the way, is called Narrow non-break space.

So to install this symbol, you need to open the table of all symbols. Now select “Plain Text” from the “Font” drop-down list and “Punctuation” from the “Type” list. Now, among all the many different symbols, find the one you need - Narrow non-break space. If anything, its name is displayed above the "AutoCorrect" button.

Having found the symbol, click the "Insert" button, after which the symbol will be inserted into the location you specified. If you're wondering what this feature might be useful for, it's great for entering dates. Thus, the numbers “2017” will be written next to the word “Year”, and there is no way to move them away.

Viewing non-printing characters

Everything we talked about in this article concerned non-printable characters. As their name suggests, they are invisible in the text. But there is special option in a program that allows you to display them. This is the corresponding button on top panel programs. In the image you can see its location and the icon itself.

After clicking this button, everyone will be displayed in the text and if you need to interact with them, then this is the only way you can do it.

By the way, the article provided examples for the 2007 version of Word, but if you are wondering how to make a non-breaking space in Word 2010, then these instructions should also suit you.

As the title suggests, the article will focus on an integral part of any Russian-language (and not only) text - the space. We will touch on the history of white space, types of spaces, and issues of using white space in web typography.

Generally speaking, a space is any empty place in handwritten, printed or displayed text on any other medium. So there are different spaces:

descenders (large vertical gaps in the first page of the publication) and end spaces of the strip,
paragraph indents and trailing paragraph spaces,
line spaces (between lines of text),
interword spaces (between words in one line),
interletter spaces (between letters in a word).

Next we will talk about interword spaces that separate words and functionally belong to punctuation marks.

History of word space

The word space is a relatively late invention in the history of human thought. The history of the gap is described in depth in Paul Saenger's book Space between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading, and also, somewhat less deeply, in Johannes Friedrich's book The History of Writing.

There is also a good article by Anton Bizyaev about gaps and their history, “In the beginning there were no gaps,” which was published in 1997 in the Publish magazine.

In short, the gap appeared quite late, in those writings where the lack of delimitation of words led to difficulty reading (the so-called consonantal letter, where only consonant sounds are written). However, in Greek and Latin, which also recorded vowel sounds, the use of the space was lost. Paul Sanger attributes this to the fact that reading was done aloud, which made it easier to distinguish between words when perceiving the text.

The space began to be used again around the 7th-9th centuries. n. BC, and this tradition came from Ireland, where the scribes and readers had Old Irish as their native language, and religious literature was written in Latin. Apparently for this reason the monks had difficulty reading aloud. It is believed that the appearance of a gap is closely related to the gradual transition from reading aloud to reading silently. Examples of books in Latin with interword spaces are monuments of British literature: the Gospel of Durrow (VII century) and the Book of Kells (VIII-IX centuries).

In the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabet there was also no space, and in our usual sense it has been used only since the 17th century.

Before humanity invented typeface, there was no special classification of interword spaces - scribes put spaces by eye and placed them. Let me remind you (we wrote about this in the article “Width Alignment”) that manuscript and xylography are methods of creating texts without moving letters. Naturally, the spaces could be of different widths, since the gaps were made manually.

Gaps in manual typing

When the mobility of letters appeared (and this happened with the advent of typefaces), questions arose accordingly - how to put spaces so that the width is maintained?

The technology of manual typing is such that the typed line is completely clamped in the typesetting board and in the galley, and, accordingly, must have a width almost exactly equal to the width of the strip (more details about the technology of manual typing can be found in the book of the same name by M. V. Shulmeister).

Line at manual dialing was typed from letters (bars, at the end of which convex mirror copies of letters were made, imprinted on paper), and interword spaces were created using the so-called spacing - bars of varying thickness, which do not have a printing surface at the end. It looks something like this. Naturally, the spacing for each font size was produced differently and had different widths. For example, for a font size of 10 points (the standard size for most text publications), emps were produced in widths of 10, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 point.

The spatula, the width of a pin, was called pin or round. Half-kegel spatulas were called half-kegel or semi-circular. There is also the name “thin embed,” which refers to 1-2 point thick empaces for 8-12 point font size. That is, for a 10 point font, the fine empace is usually 2 points (respectively, 1⁄5 point). However, due to the lack of an exact definition of fine empacing, the publisher's, editor's and layout designer's manuals usually speak not of fine empacing, but of so many points (assuming that the font size is 10 points).

Thus, you need to understand that, depending on the font size, the share of round empress (a third, a quarter, etc.) may have a different width in points, and vice versa.

Traditional word space width

So, having figured out what round and semicircular emphases are, let’s move on to the width of the actual word space accepted in the Russian typesetting.

Schulmeister writes (p. 94) that when typing a line, a semicircular line is placed between the words. When a line is typed to the end, in most cases its width is either less or more width dial stripes. Therefore, the layout designer has to change the width of the spaces, reducing it to a minimum of 1⁄4 round and increasing it to a maximum of 3⁄4 round (accordingly, when typing with a font size of 10 points, the interword spaces can vary from 3 to 7 points). Naturally, there are nuances that depend on the format of the publication, but we will not touch on them.

However, Schulmeister stipulates that the half-circle interword space itself is too large, and using a standard 1⁄3-round space is both more economical in terms of paper consumption and often more beautiful. Also, using half-round interword space is not recommended for narrow fonts.

With the advent of line casting machines, spaces began to be made uniform in width within one line, and the width of the interword space began to vary about 1⁄3 round.

Desktop typesetting and web typography

Currently, we are limited by the capabilities of the fonts we use, and, naturally, by the Unicode character set. It must be remembered that not all fonts contain the majority of Unicode whitespace characters.

When going to computer systems In the layout, a transition was made from indicating the width of the spacing in points to indicating the width of the spacing in fractions of a round, since fonts began to be easily scaled to any size, and whitespace elements had to remain proportional to the font size.

Space characters in Unicode

Unicode provides the following characters for spaces in Western typography.

Interword space, U+0020, - width from 1⁄5 to 1⁄2 round depending on the font. For medium fonts, the interword space has a width of about 1⁄4 round (for example, Times New Roman has just such a space), for wide fonts it is about 1⁄3 round (Microsoft Verdana - 0.35 round, Microsoft Tahoma - 0.31 round).
Non-breaking word space, U+00A0, - has the same width as a regular word space, but a line break is prohibited in the place of a non-breaking space.

Regular and non-breaking word spaces are included in any font and are displayed correctly by all agents, except for the lack of expansion and reduction of non-breaking space when justified in some word processors and browsers (which is a violation of recommendations). For example, FireFox scales non-breaking spaces correctly, but MSIE 7.0 does not scale them at all.

All other whitespace characters have a fixed width and are not stretched when lines are justified. However, according to the Unicode line break algorithm, all of them should be treated as a line break point.

Round embed, U+2003, - as mentioned, has a width equal to the size of the point. Also called Em Space, possibly because the letter "M" in some old fonts had that width. However, now this is not done everywhere, and therefore the statement that Em Space always has the width of the letter “M” is a fallacy.
Semicircular embed, U+2002, - half round. Also called En Space, possibly because the letter "N" in some old fonts had that width. However, now this is not done everywhere, and therefore the statement that En Space always has the width of the letter “N” is a misconception.
Tretted spacing, U+2004, - a third of the round. In English it is called Three-per-Em Space.
Quarter spacing, U+2005, - quarter round. In English it is called Four-per-Em Space.
One sixth round, U+2006, . In English it is called Six-per-Em Space.
Thin spacing, U+2009, - usually has a width of 1⁄5 round (less often - 1⁄6). Generally speaking, its width depends on the typesetting language and the font manufacturer, and in Cyrillic fonts thin spacing is usually 1⁄5 round wide. This emoticon is exactly the same proportion as a two-point emoticon when typed with a 10-point font. In English it is called Thin Space.
Hair spacing, U+200A, is the narrowest embed, about 1⁄10-1⁄16 round wide. This type of emoticon is roughly equivalent in proportion to a one-point emoticon when typed with a 10-point font, or even looks narrower.

Using different spaces

Since the width of the word space is fixed in the font and changes automatically when justified in width, the use of other whitespace characters as interword justified only when typing printed publications, and only if there is a deep understanding of why this is being done.

In regular web layout, to separate words, it is enough to use regular and non-breaking spaces between words.

At the same time, according to the rules of Russian-language typography, in a number of places thin empath should be used (more precisely, in the reference books it is written about two-point empathy, but we will use the term “thin empace” as the most appropriate both from the point of view of established terminology and from the point of view appearance lines when typing).

The basic rules for using spaces will be described below, but in general we recommend next principle for use in web development.

When preparing HTML documents for publication on the Internet, the whitespace elements should be space, non-breaking space, and emphase only. In the event that the author intends that the page should be viewed using agents that incorrectly process the character, then a regular or non-breaking space should be used instead of a thin space.

Using only a thin emoticon from the entire variety of whitespace elements allows, firstly, to preserve the harmonious appearance of the typed text, and secondly, not to overload the author of the publication with various rules for using emoticons of various fractional widths.

Handling of spaces by browsers and search engines

When preparing the article, we conducted a kind of experiment on a specially prepared page. Yandex and Google deal with non-standard characters well, replacing all non-standard whitespace elements with regular ones when searching (we believe that this is the correct behavior). That is, they do not make a difference between the texts “two words”, “two words”, “ two words" and so on.

As it turned out, rendering non-standard whitespace elements works very poorly in browsers. Only Firefox 3.0 on Windows XP and *nix, MSIE 7.0 and Safari on Windows XP cope with the task normally. There is no data on MSIE 8.0, but most likely everything is fine with it too.

Firefox before version 3.0 does not break lines at all at non-standard spaces. The width of spaces is displayed correctly.
Opera 9.26 and 9.50, FireFox 3.0 for Mac, Safari for Mac string are transferred, but all spaces turn out to be the same width.
MSIE 5.5 and 6.0 under Windows 2000 put squares instead of spaces (perhaps the corresponding characters are simply not in the system font).

It’s not entirely clear what it’s connected to same width of all whitespace elements in all browsers on Mac. Probably with built-in fonts.

Basic rules for using spaces

So, let us emphasize once again that in all the rules listed below, thin emplate is used only if the author rejects the risk of a site visitor using browsers that incorrectly display thin empace. These include some browsers on *nix (possibly due to built-in fonts), MSIE version 6.0 and earlier, browsers for Mac (they can be ignored, since the rendering error is only in the width of the spacing), perhaps some browsers for mobile phones and PDA.

In the event that such browsers are likely to be used, we recommend using regular or non-breaking spaces instead of thin spacing.

As described above, according to Unicode guidelines, empace is a space where a line break is possible. In cases where the rules require the use of thin emphases and the prohibition of line breaks (for example, between digits when typing a number), it is necessary to use a construction like 250 000. The nobr HTML element is proprietary and is prohibited for use.

Next, we will describe those rules for spacing that, according to our observations, are most often violated when laying out texts. More detailed information You can learn about the rules of typing texts, for example, in the “Publisher and Author’s Handbook” by A. E. Milchin and L. K. Cheltsova.

Abbreviations and symbols

In the abbreviations “and so on”, “and the like”, “since”, “that is”, “and others”, “BC”, “southern latitude” and the like, all elements of the abbreviation are separated by a non-breaking space.
etc. - etc.
etc. - etc.
because - because
i.e. - i.e.
etc. - etc.
BC e. - BC e.
Yu. w. - Yu. w.
The initials are separated from each other and from the surname by a continuous space.
A. S. Pushkin - A. S. Pushkin
J. R. R. Tolkien - J. R. R. Tolkien
It is also acceptable to separate the initials from each other and from the surname following it with a thin emp, but transferring the initials or surname to next line prohibited. Regardless of the choice of initialing style, it is necessary to adhere to the unity of style throughout the entire document or site.
V. V. Putin - V. V. Putin
V. Putin - V. Putin
Putin V.V. - Putin V.V.
Putin V. - Putin V.
The abbreviated word is separated from the proper name by a non-breaking space.
st. Shchorsa - st. Shchorsa
Moscow - Moscow
metro named after Lenin - metro named after. Lenin
The number and the corresponding counting word are separated by a non-breaking space.
12 billion rubles - 12 billion rubles
Ch. IV - Ch. IV
pp. 3-6 - pp. 3-6
rice. 42 - fig. 42
XX century - XX century
1941-1945 - 1941-1945
ward No. 6 - ward No. 6
§ 22 - § 22
25 % - 25 %
97,5 ? - 97,5 ?
16¢ - 16¢.
The number and the corresponding unit of measurement (except for the signs of degrees, minutes and seconds) are stamped with a thin emboss; line breaks are prohibited.
400 m - 400 m
100 t - 100 t
451°F - 451°F
but 59°, 57′, 00″.
The degrees, minutes and seconds signs are marked off with a thin embald from the subsequent digits.
59° 57′ 00″ - 59° 57′ 00″

It should be taken into account that there is no completely established rule among typographers regarding the spacing of percentage signs and currency symbols, so typing the percentage sign and currency symbols close to the number is not a mistake if such use is carried out uniformly throughout the site. However, we believe that using a space in in this case improves text readability.

Numbers and intervals

The fractional and integer parts of the number are not separated by a space from the decimal point: 0.62, 345.5.
The digits of the number are separated from each other by a thin empton, except for dates, numbers (for example, documents), designations of machines and mechanisms.
25 563,42 - 25 563,42
1 652 - 1 652
1 298 300 - 1 298 300
but 1999, GOST 20283, input. No. 982364
When designating intervals numerically, the dash does not move away from the boundaries of the interval.
50-100 m - 50-100 m
1 500-2 000 - 1 500-2 000
1.5-2 thousand - 1.5-2 thousand
15-20 % - 15-20 %
The unary signs plus, minus and plus-minus are not separated from the following number: +20 °C, −42, ±0.1.
Binary signs of mathematical operations and relations are embossed on both sides on a thin embed.
2 + 3 = 5 - 2 + 3 = 5

Punctuation marks

Period, comma, colon, interrogative and exclamation marks, semicolons are not separated by a space from the preceding word, and are separated by a space from the subsequent one: Ha, ha. Ha? Ha!
The ellipsis is not separated from the preceding word if it is at the end of a sentence or part of a sentence, and from the subsequent one if it is at the beginning of the sentence: Wow... What? …Nothing.
Quotation marks are not separated by spaces from the text enclosed in them: battleship "Potemkin".
Brackets are not separated by spaces from the text enclosed in them, and are separated by spaces outside (except when the closing bracket is adjacent to a punctuation mark to the right): The text in brackets is of no interest to anyone (usually).
A dash is separated from the previous word by a non-breaking space, and from the next by an ordinary space (including if the interval is indicated in verbal, not digital form).
Vitenka - well done!
Only a cucumber fifteen to twenty centimeters long will suit us
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
If two numbers in verbal form do not form an interval, but mean “either one number or another,” then a hyphen is placed between them, which is not separated by spaces: drank two or three glasses.

There is a recommendation to use a thin empace or not to use a dot, comma or quotation mark at all. This may be justified when recruiting printed text specific font, as it increases the uniformity of spaces. At the same time, when viewing text for the web, the user’s fonts can be completely different, which is why the space left of the dash constantly becomes narrower than the right one.

Unwanted hyphens

Short words and conjunctions ( A, And, But, I, You, and so on) it is better to separate the subsequent word with a non-breaking space, since a short word hanging at the end of the line impairs readability. In particular, it is very desirable to prevent line breaks between particles Not and the following verb.
Particles or, would, whether It is advisable to separate the previous word with a non-breaking space: the same thing, I would say, if I thought.
It is advisable not to separate prepositions at the beginning of a sentence from the words that follow them. (even longer than one- and two-letter ones)

Even if you don't press Enter. But this is not always convenient. For example, you wrote your full name. The initials may appear at the end of one line, and the last name at the beginning of another. This way the information is perceived worse. Yes, and it looks ugly. To avoid choosing a place for each word, figure out how to create a non-breaking space in Word. With it, the phrase will not be separated when transferred.

Special characters help you format text on a page correctly.

Keyboard shortcut and autocorrect

This element will appear if you press Shift + Ctrl + Space bar at the same time. You can assign other buttons like this:

Go to the menu Insert - Symbol - Other.
Tab "Special characters".
Look for the “Non-breaking space” item.
Click on "Keyboard shortcut..."
Set the parameters that are convenient for you.

If you don't want to reach out with your fingers every time different places on the keyboard or remember what this or that button in Word is responsible for, configure the replacement parameters.

Select and copy the desired formatting element.
Open the same “Special Characters” tab.
Click on "AutoCorrect"
In the Replace field, type what you want to become a non-breaking space as you type. This could be three dashes, two underscores, or a codeword, which is not used when printing in Word. Set the parameters you want.
In the “On” field you need to put the previously copied Non-breaking space. Before doing this, check the “Plain text” checkbox.
Click Add.

How to insert a non-breaking space in Word is up to you. You can choose the most convenient method. It's very easy to set up.

Special space

If you need not only to prohibit the division of a phrase, but also to fix the distance between letters, use a special Word element - Narrow non-break space. With it, the words will be close to each other, even if you set the width alignment.

To put it in a document, you need to do the following:

Open the symbol menu.
From the Set drop-down list, select Punctuation.
Find Narrow non-break. The name of the selected object is located above the AutoCorrect button.
You can customize the keyboard shortcut or paste directly.

This function can be used to indicate dates - the numbers “2016” do not move away from the word “year”.

How can I see where the hidden symbols are?

Formatting elements cannot be seen. They are used for layout and should not be displayed in normal mode working with the document. But to find the Non-breaking space symbol, you don’t need to retype the entire text. You can adjust the visibility of hidden characters.

At the top of the window, select Menu (called Home in Word 2013).
Find the Show All Characters icon in the Paragraph panel. It looks like the letter "P" with a black spot at the top. The same function can be activated by simultaneously pressing Ctrl+Shift+* (asterisk).

MS Word program automatically transfers to new line, when we reach the end of the current one. In place of a space at the end of a line, a kind of text break is added, which in some cases is unnecessary.

So, for example, if you need to avoid breaking any whole structure consisting of words or numbers, a line break added by using a space at the end of the line will clearly be a hindrance.

To avoid an unwanted break in the structure, at the end of the line, instead of a regular space, you need to set a non-breaking space. How to put a non-breaking space in Word will be discussed below.

After reading the text in the screenshot, you probably already understood how to add a non-breaking space, but using the example of this screenshot you can clearly show why such a symbol is needed at all.

As you can see, the key combination written in quotes is split into two lines, which is undesirable. Alternatively, you can, of course, write it without spaces, this will eliminate the line break. However, this option is not suitable for all cases; moreover, using a non-breaking space is a much more effective solution.

1. To set a non-breaking space between words (symbols, numbers), place the cursor in the space space.

Note: A non-breaking space must be added instead of a regular space, not together with/next to it.

2. Press the keys “Ctrl+Shift+Space(space)”.

3. A non-breaking space will be added. Consequently, the structure located at the end of the line will not be broken, but will remain entirely in the previous line or will be transferred to the next one.

Repeat if necessary similar action to set non-breaking spaces in the margins between all components of the structure that you want to prevent from breaking.

If you turn on the hidden characters mode, you will see that the characters of a regular space and a non-breaking space are visually different.

Actually, we can end this. From this short article, you learned how to create a non-breaking space in Word, as well as in what cases it may be needed. We wish you success in learning and using this program and all its features.