Thin space

In typography, a thin space is a space character that is usually ​¹⁄₅ or ​¹⁄₆ of an em in width. It is used to add a narrow space, such as between nested quotation marks or to separate glyphs that interfere with one another.

In Unicode, thin space is encoded at U+2009   THIN SPACE (HTML  <dot-separator>  ). Unicode's U+202F   NARROW NO-BREAK SPACE (HTML  ) is a non-breaking space with a width similar to that of the thin space.

In LaTeX and Plain TeX, \thinspace produces a narrow, non-breaking space. Outside math formulas in LaTeX, \, also produces a narrow, non-breaking space, but inside math formulas it produces a narrow, breakable space.

In Microsoft Word, in the symbol dialog (often available via Insert > Symbol or Insert > Special Characters), both the thin space and the narrow no-break space are available for point-and-click insertion. In Word's Symbol dialog, under font = "(normal text)", they are found in subset = "General Punctuation", Unicode character 2009 and nearby. Other word processing programs have ways of producing a thin space.

See also

• Figure space
• Whitespace character for additional space characters of varying widths