Back Bílý znak Czech Leerraum German نویسه فاصله خالی FA Tulostumaton merkki Finnish White space Hungarian 空白文字 Japanese Whitespace (karakter) Dutch Znaki niedrukowalne Polish Whitespace (computer science) SIMPLE Beyaz boşluk karakteri Turkish
A whitespace character is a character data element that represents white space when text is rendered for display by a computer.
For example, a space character (U+0020 SPACE, ASCII 32) represents blank space such as a word divider in a Western script.
A printable character results in output when rendered, but a whitespace character does not. Instead, whitespace characters define the layout of text to a limited degree – interrupting the normal sequence of rendering characters next to each other. The output of subsequent characters is typically shifted to the right (or to the left for right-to-left script) or to the start of the next line. The effect of multiple sequential whitespace characters is cumulative such that the next printable character is rendered in a location based on the accumulated effect of preceding whitespace characters.
The term whitespace is rooting in the common practice of rendering text on white paper. Normally, a whitespace character is not rendered as white. It affects rendering, but it is not itself rendered.