Non-breaking space vs. space w/No Break attrib

[J***@adobeforums.com]

Is there any significant or functional difference between inserting a non-breaking space, and using a normal space with the "No Break" attribute? For what it's worth, I've found the No Break attribute very useful, but some of my ID-inclined customers don't want me to use it, as there is no visual indicator that I know how to activate that shows that No Break is on. That is, with the nonbreaking space, you can turn on Hidden Characters, but with the No Break attribute, the only thing I can do is turn on my Character palette, click on the button, and see if the checkmark is there.

It's not a big deal, but I'm curious.

[D***@adobeforums.com]

What you could do is use a character style to apply the no break (that's what I generally do) and then if you wanted to view them all you could turn on a custom underline in some hideous color in the style.

But there is a functional difference. The non-breaking space is fixed size in justified type while the regular space is subject to the ebb and flow word spacing variation to fit lines.

Dave

[J***@adobeforums.com]

I knew there had to be something! Thanks, Dave.

[David Creamer]

Another thing to keep in mind is that only one character style can be applied to text, so another style could remove the non-break setting -- whereas the non-breaking space would not be affected by applying a new character style.

[D***@adobeforums.com]

Well, you could just apply it as a local attribute if that worried you, though I know you'll say that if you remove overrides then you'll lose that attribute too. I always use no-break as a character style and I haven't ever removed it accidently, so given the choice between continuing to pay attention to where I apply my styles or having a fixed-width space sitting in a justified line, I'll go with paying attention.

[J***@adobeforums.com]

Well, I don't want to use the No Break attribute that can get accidentally blown out when I remove overrides, which I do all the time - it's a pretty crucial step. (I also make extensive use of character styling for other purposes, so I'd have to experiment with it for a while before I started using No Break in a char style.)

However, I have to plan for the future; most of the documents we produce will be revised and reused extensively. So, if I use a nonbreaking space in some FLRR text, I'm almost guaranteed to see it in print within the next three years, with the text fully justified and my nonbreaking space sticking out like a sore thumb.

BUT, if I just give up and use a soft return, I'm just as likely to see a poorly-placed line break. (I haven't yet spotted a nonbreaking space-related-problem like this, but I have encountered poorly-thought-out soft return usage from my past coming back to haunt me. Given how long I've been using the non-breaking space, I should see some poor justification based on its use any week now.)

So, is this worth a feature request: "Please make the nonbreaking space act like a space?" Or is there a typographical or technological reason for this behavior? The width of the space character is determined by the font, but can be altered by many other criteria, such as justification, tracking, horizontal scale, etc. Obviously, it's possible to make the ordinary space change width on the fly along with justification. It would make sense to me that the nonbreaking space would be affected by tracking and horizontal scale, and my quick experiments show that it is. So, why isn't it affected by justification?

[D***@adobeforums.com]

I don't know why justification doesn't affect the non-breaking space when tracking does, and ID's not the first app to annoy me by having a fixed-width non-breaking space (Frame used to add insult to injury by saying in its manual that its FWNB space did flex.) I've never seen the need for a FWNB space. But I think I read that CS3 has introduced a flexing NB space.

As for using no-break as a character style, I also use a lot of character styles (I avoid local formating when I can) and I've never had a problem with a no-break character style. I don't see why it would be any more of a problem than any other character style. Though, ideally, I would prefer to have overlapping character styles.

[S***@adobeforums.com]

Though, ideally, I would prefer to have overlapping character styles.




Years ago I discovered this feature in ReadySetGo. It was poorly implemented and non-intuitive, but a style in RSG could, as in ID, only contain the attributes you wanted, like size or colour. But you could stack styles, applying any number of styles to text so long as there was no conflict in the definitions. I don't know how conflicts were resolved when applied or when definitions changed. But it can be done, and is needed in ID.

[P***@adobeforums.com]

But in essence you can stack styles now, though not quite as flexibly. Just create a new style based on the one you want to add No Break to, and add it. If the underlying character style needs to change, the no-break one will also update automatically.

This doesn't strike me as any more work than selecting multiple styles when you do it the first time to create the combined style, a it could be less work if you need to use it more than once, plus it prevents possible user error in choosing the wrong grouping or leaving something out.

Peter

[M***@adobeforums.com]

So, if I use a nonbreaking space in some FLRR text, I'm almost guaranteed
to see it in print within the next three years




Most people agree that using a soft returns to force line breaks is not a good idea because it can come back to haunt you later. But the very same thing can be said about both the NBS and No Break. I don't beleive either of them should be used to affect line breaks. They are intended to keep things together, not to make things break, and if used as intended they will never cause trouble in future edits or reformats.

I mentioned this in another post just a couple of days back, but if I want to play with alternative line breaks, I adjust the tracking, generally on the paragraph as a whole, but sometimes a specific line or two. To this end I keep my default keyboard increments low to keep the fix from looking too obvious. (And as I said in the other post, my habit of resetting the tracking on these paragraphs when they are being edited is one of my pet peeves about ID. By bug or by design, the keyboard shortcut changes Optical tracking to Metric.)

[D***@adobeforums.com]

The whole point about applying no break is that it doesn't force a new line. It forces two words together that were presumably previously split across two lines; this results in a recompose of the paragraph. This can have all kinds of effects depending on the length of the paragraph (assuming the paragraph composer).

Should you later edit the paragraph, the existence of that non-breaking space will have an impact on the composer's options, but nothing like as serious as a forced line break will have.

Dave

[M***@adobeforums.com]

but nothing like as serious as a forced line break will have




Isn't that about the same as saying moderately serious? <g>

[J***@adobeforums.com]

When I started this, I really did think it was a question for the ID forum ("How does No Break work?), and it's starting to sound more like a Typography forum question ("How do you deal with orphans/widows/clean up FLRR-composed text?"). I think that Dave's response makes sense; using any non-breaking space is going to have some consequences for text composition upon any reformatting of the document, but those consequences won't be as dire as they would have been if forced linebreaks had been used instead.

Of course, I'm going to empty out my bag of tricks before I resort to using any no-break technique. However, once I've done some manual kerning, adjusted the justification a bit, tracked the text to +5 or -5 or so, adjusted the margins by 0p3 or less, and I still have an ultra-ragged right margin, I'm going to use No Break or a non-breaking space to try to clean the text up, before I resort to waking up the translator in East Asia for some margin-inspired copyediting. It sounds like a tolerable compromise to me.

(BTW, M. Blackburn, would you be willing to contact me off-list? I have any number of questions about your literacy in Lao, and the ID forum really doesn't seem like the place.)