Can anyone tell me how to delete a non-breaking space? I have inherited them in a document I am compiling by cutting and pasting text from various contributors and have text that is started and ended by non breaking spaces, the text has also been highlighted. I am trying to remove the highlighting but find that I can't do this where the NBSs are included in the highlighting. Any advice would be very gratefully received.
Gwyn
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With more than 35 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company.
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Inserting a Non-Breaking Space
When Word calculates line width and wraps text to the next line, it tries to break the line at either a space or a hyphen. Sometimes, however, you may not want Word to break a line at a certain space. For instance, you may want to make sure that two adjacent words appear on the same line as each other. The answer is to use non-breaking spaces instead of regular spaces when you don't want Word to break a line at a certain space. To do this, hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys as you press the Spacebar. Word will then not break the line at that point.
An alternative way of inserting a non-breaking space is to follow these steps:
- Display the Symbol dialog box by displaying the Insert tab of the ribbon, clicking Symbol, and then More Symbols (Word 2007) or choosing Symbol from the Insert menu (older versions of Word).
- Click on the Special Characters tab. (See Figure 1.)
- Highlight the Nonbreaking Space character.
- Click on Insert.
- Close the dialog box by clicking on Cancel.
Figure 1. The Special Characters tab of the Symbol dialog box.
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1081) applies to Microsoft Word versions: 97 2000 2002 2003 2007
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Comments for this tip:
Gwyneth Owen 27 Feb 2013, 06:51
Dave Malloy 26 Oct 2012, 11:11
I found out that code 2002 is called an "n" space and cose 2003 is called an "m" space. I think they can be searched for in Word "find" but they need to be copied and put in the find field by hitting ctl-v. They can be input into a Word doc by typing the code page value and then hitting alt-x.
Dave Malloy 25 Oct 2012, 17:44
Depending on their widths, they have different code page values, which can be seen by hitting Alt-x with the insert point on the right of a character. The regular nonbreaking space has a code page value of 00A0 and the others are 2001, 2002, & 2003.
Dave Malloy 25 Oct 2012, 17:08
Also, they are varying widths and the document is not justified.
Dave Malloy 25 Oct 2012, 17:06
I can insert a nonbreaking space and get the degree symbol and it is found using ^s but the other degree symbols in my document is ignored.
Dave Malloy 25 Oct 2012, 17:03
I find the nonbreaking space symbol in Word documents that are not recognized the the Word search string ^s for nonbreaking spaces. What are they if the are not regular nonbreaking spaces?
K.Vee.Shanker. 21 Sep 2012, 01:26
Thanks! I've been looking for this tip.
jovonneb 05 Sep 2012, 17:37
thanks this helps!
Robin Forder 01 Mar 2012, 07:14
Thanks Allen. It's helpful to see the symbol dialog box.