HTML tip: Keeping some words together

As HTML knowledge is becoming more and more important for marketing in general, it would behoove you to know some of the ins and outs of HTML.

That said, here’s a little trick. It involves keeping some of your words together, even if they span across more than one line. This is done by using non-breaking spaces.

The secret code

This is pretty simple, actually, To force a web browser to treat 2 separate words as if they were 1, use the code   instead of a space, like so:

These two words are like one.

A practical example

You may have noticed that I added my most recent Twitter entry to this blog’s main page under What I’m Doing. I used a WordPress plugin called Simple Twitter.

When I first added this functionality to the sidebar, I noticed a little boo-boo when the words “(via Twitter)” ended up spanning more than a single line.

Here’s what it looked like:

Notice how “via” and “Twitter” span 2 lines. This makes it a tad less scannable. The 2 words belong together!

So I changed my code to read as such:

(via&nbsp;<a href="http://www.twitter.com/ccmedia">Twitter</a>)

Now the words will stay together, no matter where they end up on the line:

Another good use: your brand

Another good place to use the non-breaking space is in your brand. Keep all the words together so that it doesn’t end up all fragmented:

Clear Crystal Media

This is truly a nit, but paying attention to the small details often makes a big difference in your design and content.

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