- #NON BREAKING SPACE WORD HOW HOW TO#
- #NON BREAKING SPACE WORD HOW MANUAL#
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Make sure that symbols are visible so that you don’t make a mistake. Inconsistency looks sloppy and unprofessional, so the most important thing to remember is to check your style guide and then be consistent. Ultimately, the choice of whether or not to use non-breaking spaces is a question of style preference.
#NON BREAKING SPACE WORD HOW MANUAL#
It will find every instance that is not in line with your style manual and prompt you to fix it. You set your preference then run PerfectIt. PerfectIt allows you to set preferences for non-breaking spaces including whether they should or should not be used with dates, measurements, currency symbols, per cent symbols and thousand separators. It checks for consistency and it makes sure that your documents are in line with your style manual. PerfectIt is an MS Word add-in that runs over 30 checks on your document – and quickly. A better, faster and more accurate way to work with non-breaking spaces is to use PerfectIt. You have to make symbols visible, search for all the different characters (or all the different patterns if you’re using wildcard search) and then repeat the search for each. The problem with searching for non-breaking spaces is that it’s very time consuming. The same goes for non-breaking spaces before common measurements or after personal titles. The only way to be thorough is to use ‘find’ and then manually check each one. The fact is that some currency symbols may have a space after, some may have a non-breaking space and some may have neither. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you can use ‘find and replace’ to automate the search for currency symbols followed by a space. For example, if your style calls for non-breaking spaces next to currency abbreviations, it’s a good idea to search for words such as ‘EUR’, ‘GBP’ and ‘USD’ to make sure that they are followed by non-breaking spaces. Revealing hidden formatting helps, but to make sure you’re using non-breaking spaces consistently you need to run a search for the characters that you would expect to find next to non-breaking spaces. When all formatting is shown, any non-breaking spaces will be visible in the form of a symbol resembling a degree sign: ‘°’. To do this, click the ‘¶’ (pilcro) icon to reveal hidden formatting (or type Shift+F1 to reveal formatting in a sidebar). To be able to see them, you need to ensure you are showing paragraph marks and all other formatting in your document. Non-breaking spaces are the same width as a regular space character, so their presence is not obvious. To work in more depth with non-breaking spaces, you need to be able to see them. Alternatively, you can select ‘Non-breaking Space’ from the Insert>Special Characters menu. The quickest way is to press Ctrl+Shift+Spacebar (or on a Mac, type Option+Spacebar). Where lines are short, such as in a layout involving multiple columns across the page, non-breaking spaces can contribute to untidy paragraphs with uneven widths. For example, in pages where space is a premium they can create orphans or widows which a line break could resolve. There are occasions when non-breaking spaces are unhelpful.
#NON BREAKING SPACE WORD HOW HOW TO#
However, you do need to be careful when considering how to use non-breaking spaces. Non-breaking spaces inserted in cases like these will ensure words appear as and where you want them to. You might also want to keep titles and names together, such as Mr Frodo or Mount Doom, or initials and surnames, such as JRR Tolkien. It’s not only with technical text or numbers where non-breaking spaces are useful. Numbers, where a style guide specifies a space is to be used instead of a comma as a thousand separator – 10 000 rather than 10.Per cent, where a % symbol preceded by a space is preferred – 100 % rather than 100.You can set up your style manual to guarantee there are no line or page breaks for example in: But you can change aspects of your style manual if you wish, to suit a piece of text or document, or to fit a third party’s style guide if you’re editing for a client. It’s a decision that’s set in your style manual. However, most of the time it’s not up to you to choose whether or not to use a non-breaking space. For example, dates look better when they appear on one line. There are times when it’s important that text is kept on the same line – where it makes more sense, to save any confusion, to make it easier for the reader or just to look neat.
#NON BREAKING SPACE WORD HOW FREE#
PerfectIt, for example, does this right from Word and has a 14-day free trial. There are tools that can automate these checks and much more right from MS Word. Figure 1: Non-breaking spaces keep numbers and symbols on the same line Automate how you check for non-breaking spaces right from Microsoft Word