From: Jim Allan (jallan@smrtytrek.com)
Date: Mon Jul 07 2003 - 10:37:33 EDT
Philippe Verdy posted:
> I can't make a recommandation on which space figure to use.
> Ideally, it must just be *less wide* than a digit and *not justified*, it must
> be *unbreakable*. The ideal space to use depends on the available fonts,
> and in practive most texts are coded with NBSP (sometimes a standard
> SPACE, but using simply nothing is better than using a SPACE), and the
> final space is substituted during formatting before publishing.
If this space *must* be *unbreakable*, as obviously it must, the only
spaces that are available for use in Unicode are U+000A NO-BREAK SPACE
or U+202F NARROW NO-BREAK SPACE.
All other spaces (of size other than zero-width) in Unicode indicate
allowable line breaks.
From Unicode Standard Annex #14:Line Breaking Properties at
http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr14/tr14-13.html:
> 2000 EN QUAD
> 2001 EM QUAD
> 2002 EN SPACE
> 2003 EM SPACE
> 2004 THREE-PER-EM SPACE
> 2005 FOUR-PER-EM SPACE
> 2006 SIX-PER-EM SPACE
> 2008 PUNCTUATION SPACE
> 2009 THIN SPACE
> 200A HAIR SPACE
> 205F MEDIUM MATHEMATICAL SPACE
>
> The preceding list of space characters all have a specific width, but
> behave otherwise as breaking spaces. In setting a justified line,
> normally none of these spaces, except for THIN SPACE when used in
> mathematical notation, will change in width. See also the SP property.
Accordingly in French U+202F NARROW NO-BREAK SPACE is the character to
be used before or after certain punctuation for narrow spacing where
no break is allowed, not U+2009 THIN SPACE or any other spacing character.
Jim Allan
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