{{Short description|Space character about 1/5 em wide}} thumb|right|upright=1.4|Spacing examples. The top row is unspaced, the middle row has a thin space between the words, and the bottom has a regular space. In typography, a '''thin space''' is a space character whose width is usually {{frac|1|5}} or {{frac|1|6}} of an em. 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. It is also used in the International System of Units and in many countries as a thousands separator when writing numbers in groups of three digits, in order to facilitate reading.<ref>{{cite web |title=8th edition of the SI Brochure |url=https://www.bipm.org/utils/common/pdf/si_brochure_8.pdf |publisher=Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM) |access-date=9 October 2019}}</ref> It also avoids the ambiguity of the comma, used as a thousands separator in many countries but as a decimal point in Europe.
In Unicode, thin space is encoded at {{unichar|2009|ulink=b:Unicode/Character_reference/2000-2FFF|html=}}. Some text editors, such as IntelliJ IDEA and Android Studio, will display the character as its suggested abbreviation of "<code><kbd>THSP</kbd></code>".<ref>{{cite web | first1=Marcel | last1=Schneider | url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2020/20007-abbreviations.pdf#page=1 |title= Proposal to extend support for abbreviations - For consideration by Unicode Technical Committee (20007-abbreviations.pdf) | date=January 13, 2020}}</ref> Unicode's {{unichar|202f|ulink=b:Unicode/Character reference/2000-2FFF}} is a non-breaking space with a width similar to that of the thin space.
In LaTeX and Plain TeX, <code><kbd>\thinspace</kbd></code> produces a narrow, non-breaking space.<ref>{{cite book |first=Donald E. |last=Knuth |author-link=Donald E. Knuth |title=The TeXbook |publisher=Addison Wesley |date=1986 |orig-year=Incorporates the final corrections made in 1996 |pages=5, 352 |url=http://www.ctex.org/documents/shredder/src/texbook.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040924030027/http://www.ctex.org/documents/shredder/src/texbook.pdf |archive-date=September 24, 2004 |url-status=live |others=Illustrations by Duane Bibby |format=PDF |hdl=2027/mdp.49015000850066 |isbn=978-0-201-13447-6 |lccn=85-30845 |oclc=682395096 |ol=7406778M }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first1=Johannes |last1=Braams |url=http://mirrors.ibiblio.org/CTAN/macros/latex/base/source2e.pdf#page=89 |title= The LaTeX 2<sub>ε</sub> Sources |date=October 1, 2015 |edition=1.2 |page=79 |display-authors=etal}}</ref> Inside and outside of math formulae in LaTeX, <code><kbd>\,</kbd></code> also produces a narrow, non-breaking space.
In all versions of LibreOffice and in some of Microsoft Word, the special characters and symbols 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 LibreOffice's Symbol dialog, there is an easy-to-find box field to narrow the searching; in Word's Symbol dialog, under font = "(normal text)", the characters are found in subset = "General Punctuation", Unicode character 2009 and nearby. Other word processing programs and many Linux configurations have ways of producing a thin space using keyboard shortcuts.
==See also== {{Wiktionary|thin space}} * Figure space * Whitespace character for additional space characters of various widths
==References== {{Reflist|30em}}
{{Typography terms}} {{Authority control}} Category:Typography Category:Whitespace