I have a div and a textarea exactly overlapped, I type in the textarea and that text is converted to spans that have varying text colors (syntax highlighting) and are then shown in the div, so it looks like you're typing in the div, but you're actually typing in the transparent textarea. At the moment I simply put a space between the spans where a space exists in the text input, but if I add more spaces in series it doesn't work (only one will show). So I tried using instead of spaces but I was surprised to find out the width of it is different from regular spaces. What is the point of then?
To the point, how can I add spaces that have the same width as regular spaces if doesn't?
And here's an example of what should be two exactly matching lines (but aren't).
<span>Hello</span> <span>World</span>
<span>Hello</span> <span>World</span>
Note: I'm using the font "FontinSmallCaps", it's possible that's the reason for the discrepancy, but I am not willing to do away with it. Would rather filter the user input to never have two consecutive spaces. Although that would be a last resort.
If anything is unclear or needs elaboration, let me know.
Thanks in advance!
Not exactly sure of your HTML structure, but whatever wraps the HTML you have shown could have white-space: pre set, then the spaces will all remain. No need to convert them.
<div style="white-space:pre"><span style="white-space: pre;">Hello</span> <span>World</span></div>
is Non-breaking space and the other is considered as normal string by browser. A non-breaking space means that the line should not be wrapped at that point, just like it wouldn’t be wrapped in the middle of a word. are also non-collapsing, that's probably the most significant aspect of their use (at least, that's how I tend to use them, pad stuff out, quick and easy)
While solving a little bug on a website caused by a non-breaking space ( ) I was wondering if there's an opposite.
Is there an HTML code for a breaking space, and if so, what is it?
I saw mention in this question about a zero-width space (), but that won't give any width (obviously).
Does an HTML entity exist for a regular space?
is a regular space (by its numeric ASCII value).
If you are using HTML and you would like more than one space to to appear, will not work. The unfortunate part about is it does not wrap properly because it is a non-breaking space.
For those that reached here looking for a solution, try the CSS
white-space: pre-wrap;
This will allow you to have multiple spaces side by side in a single line. It works great for chat programs.
There are multiple html entities for regular white space, which allow breaking, for instance
Read this article for more information: https://www.codetd.com/en/article/6915972
There may be other blank entities (which won't compact to a single) but there is another workaround for doing some padding but still having some wrapping occur as required:
Use the "ZeroWidthSpace" html entity and alternate with either "nbsp" for clarity or simply a space character.
Why to use this in the code while coding?
Where to use this? why the code need this?
Referring to which context we should write this?
How to display text exactly in the center, with equal distance from all the sides?
This code is used to apply a space within your code, you may have noticed when writing HTML, if you leave a massive pile of spaces between two words, the browser ignores it, and therefore thats when
is needed.
If you want to center text, there is a number of ways you can do this, the best way is probably to use the CSS rule:
text-align: center;
See this for more info:
http://www.w3schools.com/cssref/pr_text_text-align.asp
is an HTML entity encoding a non-breaking space. If you separate two words with , web browsers will not split the words over two lines.
  is almost always a typo.
People frequently use with normal spaces to add extra horizontal whitespace.
There are other posts covering how to centre text vertically and horizontally - see https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=vertically+horizontally+centered+text for a range of answers.
is a html ascii character. It represents a space.
When you add multiple spaces after each other in html they will be truncated and only one will be displayed in the rendered page. when you use all spaces are rendered on the page.
So when I write "Meyer Waterlow is a fantastic company" and also use css justification, the gaps between all words get treated equally. So I might get
"Meyer Waterlow is a fantastic company"
Instead, I'd like
"Meyer Waterlow is a fantastic company".
How can I do this?
One simple approach is to use a non-breaking space in between the words...
Meyer Waterloo
Of course, it all depends on how the text is being generated, from a database or hand coded.
I’m afraid there is no direct solution, since the no-break space does not work reliably as a “non-stretchable” space as it used to.
Here’s a hackish trick: leave no space between the words, but put a zero-width space between them (acting as an allowed line breaking point) and set a right padding on the first word:
<span class=word>Meyer</span>Waterlow
with CSS code
.word { padding-right: 0.25em; }
The value 0.25em roughly approximates the average width of a space character (but the width actually varies considerably by font).
Both of them mean space, but is there any difference?
One is non-breaking space and the other is a regular space. A non-breaking space means that the line should not be wrapped at that point, just like it wouldn’t be wrapped in the middle of a word.
Furthermore as Svend points out in his comment, non-breaking spaces are not collapsed.
The entity produces a non-breaking space, which is used when you don't want an automatic line break at that position. The regular space has the character code 32, while the non-breaking space has the character code 160.
For example when you display numbers with space as thousands separator: 1 234 567, then you use non-breaking spaces so that the number can't be split on separate lines. If you display currency and there is a space between the amount and the currency: 42 SEK, then you use a non-breaking space so that you don't get the amount on one line and the currency on the next.
In addition to the other answers here, non-breaking spaces will not be "collapsed" like regular spaces will. For example:
<!-- Both -->
<p>Word1 Word2</p>
<!-- and -->
<p>Word1 Word2</p>
<!-- will render the same on any browser -->
<!-- While the below one will keep the spaces when rendered. -->
<p>Word1 Word2</p>
Not an answer as much as examples...
Example #1:
<div style="width:45px; height:45px; border: solid thin red; overflow: visible">
Hello There
</div>
Example #2:
<div style="width:45px; height:45px; border: solid thin red; overflow: visible">
Hello There
</div>
And link to the fiddle.
Multiple normal white space characters (space, tabulator and line break) are treated as one single white space character:
For all HTML elements except PRE, sequences of white space separate "words" (we use the term "word" here to mean "sequences of non-white space characters"). When formatting text, user agents should identify these words and lay them out according to the conventions of the particular written language (script) and target medium.
So
foo bar
is displayed as
foo bar
But no-break space is always displayed. So
foo   bar
is displayed as
foo bar
You can see a working example here:
http://codepen.io/anon/pen/GJzBxo
and
http://codepen.io/anon/pen/LVqBQo
Same div, same text, different "spaces"
<div style="width: 500px; background: red"> [loooong text with spaces]</div>
vs
<div style="width: 500px; background: red"> [loooong text with ]</div>
As already mentioned, you will not receive a line break where there is a "no-break space".
Also be wary, that elements containing only a " " may show up incorrectly, where will work. In i.e. 6 at least (as far as I remember, IE7 has the same issue), if you have an empty table element, it will not apply styling, for example borders, to the element, if there is no content, or only white space. So the following will not be rendered with borders:
<td></td>
<td> <td>
Whereas the borders will show up in this example:
<td>& nbsp;</td>
Hmm -had to put in a dummy space to get it to render correctly here
The first is not treated as white space by the HTML parser, the second is. As a result the " " is not guaranteed to showup within certain HTML markup, while the non breakable space will always show up.
should be handled as a whitespace.
should be handled as two whitespaces
' ' can be handled as a non interesting whitespace
' ' + ' ' can be handled as a single ' '
is stackable, meaning you can create multiple spaces all together.
HTML will only parse one space '' and it drops the rest...
If you want five spaces, you would place 5 x
#Zoidberg is right,
example:
<h1>title</h1> <h2>date</h2>
will not display space between header markup, with
& nbsp ;
will do space :)
When having line-breaks, the line will not break when you use an $bnsp; because it's a 'non-breaking space'. This can be important if you have certain product-names or such, that always shall be written together.
Can be interesting if you (have to) use a whitespace as delimiter in numbers, like 12344567, that is displayed 12 344 567 in France. Without the the line would break in the middle of the number, very ugly. Test:12 344 567
TLDR; In addition to the accepted answer; One is implicit and one is explicit.
When the HTML you've written or had generated by an application/library/framework is read by your browser it will do it's best to interpret what your HTML meant (which can vary from browser to browser). When you use the HTML entity codes, you are being more specific to the browser. You are explicitly telling it you wish to display a character to the user (and not that you are just spacing your HTML for easier readability for the developer for instance).
To be more concrete, if the output HTML were:
<html>
<title>hello</title>
<body>
<p>
Tell me and I will forget. Teach me and I
may remember. Involve me and I will learn.
</p>
</body>
</html>
The browser would only render one space between all of these words (even the ones that have been indented for better developer readability.
If, however, you put the same thing and only changed the <p> tag to:
<p>Hello There</p>
Then it would render the spaces, as you've instructed it more explicitly. There is some history of using these spaces for styling. This use has somewhat been diminished as CSS has matured. However, there are still valid uses for many of the HTML character entities: avoiding unexpectedly/unintentionally interpretation (e.g. if you wanted to display code). The w3 has a great page to show the other character codes.