[l2h] What is a good way to introduce five or six consecutive blank spaces within text in a .html file produced using LaTeX2HTML?

[Pat Somerville]

Thanks for very kindly taking the time to explain these things, Peter Flynn.

Pat

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From: "Peter Flynn" <peter at silmaril.ie>
Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011 6:23 PM
To: <latex2html at tug.org>
Subject: Re: [l2h] What is a good way to introduce five or six consecutive 
blank spaces within text in a .html file produced using LaTeX2HTML?

> On 14/10/11 15:44, Pat Somerville wrote:
> [...]
>> Now for my education can anyone explain to me why in modifying a tag in
>> the HyperText Markup (HTML) document source code of the output file of
>> the form MyFile.html to include "      "
>> that the display of such a MyFile.html in both the Konqueror-4.6.00 and
>> Mozilla Firefox-6.0.2 Web browsers produced what looked like only about
>> two blank spaces instead of the six blank spaces commanded?
>
> "A space" is not a unit of width except when using a monospace 
> (typewriter) typeface. In normal variable-width typefaces "a space" is a 
> quantity set by the type designer appropriate for a default word-space. 
> You cannot use multiple spaces and expect them to multiply widthwise 
> except when using a monospace typeface.
>
> In HTML, multiple normal space-characters always get collapsed to a single 
> space (except in monospace formats like the pre element type). In 
> variable-width typefaces, multiple non-breaking spaces will produce a 
> small increase in white-space but certainly not "six blank spaces" because 
> there is no such concept as "six blank spaces" because a space is not a 
> unit of measurement.
>
> A non-breaking space is what it says: it replaces a space where you want a 
> single space to appear, but the line must never be broken at that point. 
> Using multiple instances of them to try and align material is usually 
> pointless because they will create different results in different browsers 
> and different typefaces.
>
> If you need to align material, use a table; or if you want to force a 
> blank space of a known width, use a span element and set its style to use 
> margin-right of the required dimension, eg
> <span style="margin-right:6em"></span>
> Some browsers may elide this, so you might have to use
> <span style="margin-right:5em"> </span>
>
> ///Peter
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