Non-breaking space

[rogerhadley]

What is the best way for an author to insert a non-breaking space in a DITA topic?
-Roger

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[Derek Read]

One way to do this is to type Alt+0160 where the digits are entered from the numeric keypad. The number 0160 is the decimal value matching the Unicode code point for this character.

Microsoft has a page on entering characters using this method here:
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/lang_char_code_input.mspx?mfr=true

Microsoft does not state this (in so many words) but you can really only use this method for entering characters with code point values up to decimal 255. For other characters (or for those you do not know the number for) you can use an [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Input_method]IME[/url] or the Windows Character Map tool (charmap.exe).

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[Griffin]

I used this method to enter non-breaking spaces into a topic that included tables. By using non-breaking spaces I was able to keep the tables from word-wrapping specific sequences that included spaces. It was quite effective.

However, in all of the different viewing modes, the non-breaking spaces were undetectable from regular spaces. Unlike other platforms which show non-breaking spaces as degree symbols or some other notation, in XMetaL they look exactly the same as regular (breaking) spaces, but behave differently.

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