Why do people use &nbsp

Question

It's possible just to use a space instead of &nbsp, so why do people use it?

Answer 1

If I am not mistaken, nbsp stands for non breakable space, so you need to use them in places where you want to put space, but do not want to let line brakes in case of different formating. So if you do move&nbspthis and your line will be to short to held "this", whole move&nbspthis will be moved to the next line.

Answer 2

To assure it won't break the line, no matter what. That is why it is called a "|n|on-|b|reaking |sp|ace"

Answer 3

That said... it is recommended to avoid using this HTML Entity where CSS can be used instead.

Answer 4

@Piday: Browsers will ignore multiple subsequent spaces showing only a single space where 10 spaces might have been placed. Specifying 10 [ ] - non-breaking space HTML Entities - will preserve those 10 spaces when rendering the in the browser.

Answer 5

Also people have been misusing it to put spaces where they couldn't otherwise. In HTML you are constantly indenting code with spaces, like

<div>
<p>
<span></span>
</p>
</div>

So HTML has to ignore all those spaces, otherwise they would end up on the page. &nbsp; will show no matter what.

Answer 6

in html &nbsp; is to add a space that doesn't collapse with multiple spaces/tabs/enters in html.

note the trailing semicolon!

so to add two spaces it's &nbsp;&nbsp;

and so on

Answer 7

Makes sense