Free Spaces & Whitespace Counter
Paste your text below to count every type of whitespace character. Regular spaces, tabs, and line breaks are obvious — but text copied from Word, web pages, or design software often contains invisible Unicode spaces that look identical but behave differently in code and publishing systems.
Whitespace Breakdown
Rows with a non-zero count are highlighted. Paste text that may contain unusual spaces (e.g. copied from Word, a PDF, or a web page) to detect hidden characters.
| Type | Code | Symbol | Count |
|---|
Types of Whitespace Explained
Most people know about the spacebar, Tab key, and Enter key. But Unicode defines over a dozen distinct whitespace characters, each with a different width and behaviour. Here is what each one is and where it comes from.
Space (U+0020) — The standard space
The everyday space produced by the spacebar. It is the most common whitespace character in any text document. Web browsers and most systems may collapse multiple consecutive standard spaces into a single rendered space unless the content is in a pre tag or uses white-space: pre in CSS.
Tab (U+0009) — Horizontal tabulation
Produced by the Tab key. In word processors, tabs jump to the next tab stop (typically every 0.5 or 1 inch). In code, a tab is typically rendered as 4 or 8 character widths depending on the editor. In HTML, tabs collapse to a single space like other whitespace. Tabs are important in Python, YAML, and Makefile syntax where indentation is semantically significant.
Line Feed (U+000A) — Unix newline
The standard line ending on Unix and macOS systems (LF). Each press of Enter in a Unix environment inserts a single line feed. HTML ignores line feeds in ordinary text, but they are critical in code, plain text, and CSV files.
Carriage Return (U+000D) — Legacy Windows/Mac line ending
Windows uses CR+LF (U+000D U+000A) as its line ending. Classic macOS (pre-OS X) used CR alone. If you paste text from a Windows document, you may have invisible carriage returns that cause unexpected behaviour in code or text processing. They are invisible in most editors and easy to overlook.
Non-Breaking Space (U+00A0) — The sneaky imposter
The non-breaking space prevents a line break at that position. It is inserted by pressing Option+Space on macOS or by typing in HTML. Word processors insert them automatically in some situations (e.g. before units of measurement or after certain abbreviations). Pasting text from Word or a web page frequently introduces non-breaking spaces that look like regular spaces but cause bugs in code, databases, and search functionality.
En Space (U+2002) and Em Space (U+2003) — Typographic spaces
En space is the width of the letter N; em space is the width of the letter M (typically the same as the current font size). These are typographic spaces used in professional typesetting and design software. They can appear in text copied from InDesign, Illustrator, or certain rich text editors.
Thin Space (U+2009) — Narrow punctuation space
Used in French and some other European typographic conventions before punctuation marks such as «guillemets», colons, and semicolons. Also used in mathematics between units and numbers (e.g. 10 kg). Found in text copied from properly typeset publications.
Hair Space (U+200A) — Ultra-thin space
The thinnest standard space, used in typesetting to provide minimal spacing between characters without affecting kerning. Rarely appears in plain text but can be found in content exported from design tools.
Zero-Width Space (U+200B) — The invisible troublemaker
Completely invisible and has zero visual width. It is used to indicate possible word-wrap points without showing a gap. Web developers use it to allow long URLs or strings to break across lines. However, it frequently appears accidentally in text copied from certain websites, apps, or messaging platforms — and causes hard-to-diagnose bugs when pasted into code, APIs, or databases. This counter will detect it.
Narrow No-Break Space (U+202F) — Thin non-breaker
A thin non-breaking space used in French typography (before !, ?, ;, :, and » characters) and for separating digits in numbers (e.g. 1 000 000). Can appear in content from French-language sources or from certain language-aware text editors.
Ideographic Space (U+3000) — Full-width CJK space
The full-width space used in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean text, where it is the standard equivalent of a regular space. It appears in text from CJK sources and is the same width as a CJK character.
Figure Space (U+2007) — Number-width space
A space the same width as a digit (0–9), used for aligning numbers in columns without using a monospace font. Common in financial typesetting and tables.
Where Hidden Spaces Come From
You rarely type unusual whitespace characters deliberately — they arrive in your text through copy and paste. Here are the most common sources:
| Source | Common Hidden Characters | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Word | Non-Breaking Space (U+00A0), Smart quotes, En dash | Pasting Word content into code or a CMS introduces invisible characters that break string matching and validation |
| Web pages / HTML | Non-Breaking Space (U+00A0), Zero-Width Space (U+200B) | entities and zero-width spaces are rendered invisibly in browsers but appear literally in plain text |
| PDF documents | Various typographic spaces, Soft hyphens | PDF text extraction is imprecise; spacing characters often do not survive the copy-paste process cleanly |
| Design tools (InDesign, Figma) | Em Space, En Space, Thin Space, Hair Space | Professional typography uses refined spacing that most plain-text environments cannot replicate |
| Messaging apps | Zero-Width Space (U+200B), Zero-Width Non-Joiner | Used by some apps for formatting or tracking; land in text when messages are copied out |
| French / European text | Thin Space (U+2009), Narrow No-Break Space (U+202F) | Correct French typography uses narrow spaces before specific punctuation marks |