Nonbreaking Space in Professional Writing
A nonbreaking space behaves like a space while preventing a line break at that position. In professional documents it can keep selected words or short units together, but it should not be used as a manual layout or indentation tool.
Use a nonbreaking space when two text elements should stay together across line wrapping; do not use it to fake page layout.
Key details
Important caveats
Technical Boundary
Unicode-compatible systems may use U+00A0 or, in narrower contexts, other nonbreaking-space characters; support and width can differ by environment.
Usage Boundary
Use nonbreaking spaces for genuine keep-together needs rather than as a substitute for layout, indentation, or repeated ordinary spaces.
Further guidance
Function
A nonbreaking space keeps the text on its two sides together when software wraps a line, helping prevent awkward separation of items that should stay visually linked.
Sources and evidence
Sources are shown with the role they play in this guide. Historical or style-sensitive claims are kept within the evidence boundary described above.
- Use left alignment — Microsoft Style Guide (opens in a new tab)Microsoft · Nonbreaking-space use to keep words together across line wrapping
- Line and word breaking — Microsoft Globalization (opens in a new tab)Microsoft · Unicode nonbreaking spaces prevent line breaking at their position