Spaces and Boxes

"Visible" Spaces

You can generate a "visible" space, generally indicated as a small, squat "u," and useful in didactic material by using the \verb command or the verbatim environment.

Non-breaking Spaces

To generate a space where you do not want to allow a break for a new line use a ~. For example, 
  ... in Table~2 and Fig.~3 ...

Controlling Space in Text

The ends of words and sentences are marked in the input by one or more spaces; LaTeX treats multiple spaces as if they were a single space. An end of line is also equivalent to a space. Paragraphs are delineated by a blank line -- one which does not contain even comments (anything following a % until the end of a line is a comment). LaTeX leaves extra space after punctuation, such as the period which ends a sentence, however, it uses a very simple rule (periods end sentences unless they follow a capital letter) so sometimes it needs a little help in determining when this is required. (However, see \frenchspacing.) Use

It is sometimes necessary to add a little additional space, such as between consecutive single and double quotation marks. The \, command can be used for this purpose.

Also see

Spaces after Commands

Most LaTeX commands consist of a \ followed by a string of letters. The end of such commands is indicated by a nonletter, i.e., a number, a punctuation mark, a space, or the end of the line. If the command produces text and you want a space to follow this text, you cannot just leave a space after the command; that space is treated as the end-of-command signal and several spaces are equivalent to one in LaTeX. To generate a space after a text-producing command you must use \<space>.

For example 

   I wrote this on \today   .
generates "I wrote this on May 11, 1995." Note that the spaces between \today and the period in the input do not generate any space in the output. On the other hand, 
  \today\ was a good day.
or 
  \today  \  was a good day.
will both produce "May 11, 1995 was a good day." The \<space> here is necessary to produce space between the date and "was."

Commands which leave space or make "boxes"

Back to the Table of Contents
Modified by Sheldon Green, agxsg@giss.nasa.gov, 5 Jun 1995.