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. It is not as narrow as the hair space.

In Unicode, thin space is encoded at U+2009   THIN SPACE (HTML   ·  ). 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.^[1][2] Outside of math formulae in LaTeX, \, also produces a narrow, non-breaking space, but inside math formulas it produces a narrow, breakable space.

In some versions of Microsoft Word, the symbol dialog (often available via Insert > Symbol or Insert > Special Characters), has both the thin space and the narrow no-break space 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.

The International System of Units uses the thin space as a thousands separator.^[3] Neither a point nor a comma should be used as both of these are reserved for use as decimal markers.

See also

Look up thin space in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

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

References