Non-breaking space glyph?

I’m trying to come up with a solution for this scenario, which happens a lot:

image

If I use an underscore to create an ellision mark, it’s much too wide. A non-breaking space is slightly better (as shown above), but still too wide.

What glyph is Dorico using for the non-breaking space? Is it a different glyph from the standard space? If so, I’d like to modify its width. But obviously I don’t want to tinker with the width of the standard space.

Hi Dan.
This has been a hobby of mine for some years : in French typography, we need narrow unbreakable spaces, especially before double punctuation signs (:;!). I had to plunge into modifying fonts to include the U+202F narrow space (that is why I mainly use my own Linux Libertine O version with this included). There’s nothing complicated about it but you have to tweak all the fonts where you need it. Quite a long task for such a small space.

2 Likes

There is no SMuFL glyph for a space, and there doesn’t seem to be a separate glyph in Academico, so I presume it is a normal space, with some magic applied.

Apropos of nothing, this 1961 engraving of Hark the Herald doesn’t use any spaces at all, though the kerning/tracking is quite wide. Mind you, it is OUP… :grin:

Marc, this is so simple but brilliant. Of course… I could even simply pick a character I wouldn’t need otherwise, and modify the font to make it be a narrow space!