Space (punctuation)

In writing, a space ( ) is a blank area devoid of content, serving to separate words, letters, numbers, and punctuation. Conventions for interword and intersentence spaces vary among languages, and in some cases the spacing rules are quite complex.

In the classical period, Latin was written with interpuncts (centred dots) as word separators, but that practice was abandoned sometime around AD 200 in favour of scriptio continua, i.e., with the words running together without any word separators. In around AD 600–800, blank spaces started being inserted between words in Latin, and that practice carried over to all languages using the Latin alphabet (e.g. English). In typesetting, spaces have historically been of multiple lengths with particular space-lengths being used for specific typographic purposes, such as separating words or separating sentences or separating punctuation from words. Following the invention of the typewriter and the subsequent overlap of designer style-preferences and computer-technology limitations, much of this reader-centric variation was lost in normal use.

In computer representation of text, spaces of various sizes, styles, or language characteristics (different space characters) are indicated with unique code points.