Printable symbol for space?

[ChrisGreaves]

This page suggests the Alt+9248 code which shows up like this:-

Untitled.png

although I have had to increase the font in order to see that it is an "sp" symbol.

I am writing a BNF definition, and that "sp" symbol doesn't seem to me to be easy to read.

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ICL(UK) used what looked like a lower-case letter " b " with a slash driven through the vertical aspect:-

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but I can't find anything like that in MSWord Insert, Symbol.

Please and thank you: What are documenters using nowadays to represent a space in a form that can be recognized in a document?

Thanks, Chris

[Charles Kenyon]

Chris, by its nature, a space is supposed to be invisible.
You could use a Block although my preference would remain <space>. Perhaps in Italics?
I am not trying to document code, though.

[ChrisGreaves]

Chris, by its nature, a space is supposed to be invisible.
You could use a Block although my preference would remain <space>. Perhaps in Italics?
I am not trying to document code, though.

Thanks, Charles.
I agree that a space is supposed to be invisible, but in this case I am writing a description of a language, and one of the lexical atoms is a space-character.
Writing:-

Code: Select all

<space> ::=

can leave the reader wondering if a <space> is a null string.
I think that by "Block" you mean one of these lozenge-looking creatures which I obtained with Alt+9663

Untitled.png

Cheers, Chris

[SpeakEasy]

>a lower-case letter " b " with a slash driven through the vertical aspect

Unicode U+2422 ␢ (Unicode name: blank symbol)

>What are documenters using nowadays to represent a space in a form that can be recognized in a document

I think I'd vote for Unicode U+2423 ␣ (Unicode name: open box)

[ChrisGreaves]

>a lower-case letter " b " with a slash driven through the vertical aspect
Unicode U+2422 ␢ (Unicode name: blank symbol)
>What are documenters using nowadays to represent a space in a form that can be recognized in a document
I think I'd vote for Unicode U+2423 ␣ (Unicode name: open box)

Thanks Speakeasy, especially for forcing me to learn something new (Alt+X)!

2422 was the symbol I grew up with, and I recognise 2423 from more recent times.
In a way I prefer the slashed-b because it stands out; I worry that the 2423 might be mistaken for an underscore symbol ("_")
Thanks again, Chris

[Charles Kenyon]

Yes, I meant the same kind of character that is used for checkboxes.

I kind of like the s/p character, but you would need to define it at the beginning of your writing. It is unambiguous.

You could size it up and save as an AutoCorrect, perhaps replacing "s/p."
http://wordfaqs.ssbarnhill.com/AutoCorrect.htm
The same is true of any character you choose to use, both as to defining it at the beginning and as to AutoCorrect.

It appears that there are a number of these special characters available. It looks like they were designed for coding on an old console.

00 deleteme 1.png

[ChrisGreaves]

Then I stumbled upon this video by Tom Scott
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yWWFLI5kFU
An alternate title for this video was "The Space That Isn't A Space", but that's a bit more difficult to translate into Ogham. Thanks again to all the team at the British Museum!

I'm going to have to think about this a bit.
Cheers, Chris