Punctuation symbol and formatting

[Bill]

I have a question about a formatting symbol
which looks like a small o, but appears to
float above the line. I found out it will keep
a phrase together, not allowing it to break to
another line. But my issues are:

1)What is this feature called, and is there a way
to turn it on and off?
2)a user is adding these unknowingly and it seems
to insert them randomly within the body of the
doc, and he does not want them or know why they are
being created.

I should also mention that the text is being created
within a table with cells, and don't know if that is
significant.

Could someone please resolve this mystery for me?
Much appreciated!!!!

Bill

 

[Stephanie Krieger]

Hi, Bill,

That character is a nonbreaking space. A user creates it
with the shortcut key combination Ctrl+Shift+Spacebar --
it can also be inserted through Insert, Symbol. I'd guess
that, if it's inadvertent, the user doesn't realize they
have Ctrl+Shift depressed when pressing the spacebar.

Hope that helps.

Best,
Stephanie Krieger
author of Microsoft Office Document Designer (from
Microsoft Learning)
email: MODD_2003 at msn dot com
blog: arouet.net

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Note, too, that nonbreaking spaces are common in text copied from the Web.
The reason is that HTML doesn't honor more than one (normal) space between
words. All spaces are compressed to one space. For that reason, many
programs that create HTML (including Word) will convert two or more spaces
in a document to a normal space and as many nonbreaking spaces as are
required. Users who routinely type two spaces after a period will find that
in email or Web pages one of these will become a nonbreaking space.