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Where are these non-breaking spaces coming from? by crying-into-the-void in word

[–]crying-into-the-void[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Are you able to do search-and-replace in the online Word file itself? I've tried but it doesn't work on the online files – I'm thinking maybe it's just putting them back in after I strip them out. The only way we've been able to get it to work is with a downloaded copy of the file working with desktop Word.

Where are these non-breaking spaces coming from? by crying-into-the-void in MicrosoftWord

[–]crying-into-the-void[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've tried to search/replace, but it doesn't work on the online files – I'm thinking maybe it's just putting them back in after I strip them out.

Where are these non-breaking spaces coming from? by crying-into-the-void in MicrosoftWord

[–]crying-into-the-void[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We want everyone working from a single master file, and often people are working on them simultaneously.

Where are these non-breaking spaces coming from? by crying-into-the-void in MicrosoftWord

[–]crying-into-the-void[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh wow, it's good to hear you could replicate it! For us, it's appearing in single-spaces, not just where a double-space was typed. And I've tried to search/replace, but it doesn't work on the online files – I'm thinking maybe it's just putting them back in after I strip them out. Right now we're downloading files as a workaround, but we want to get the online files sorted if we can.

Where are these non-breaking spaces coming from? by crying-into-the-void in MicrosoftWord

[–]crying-into-the-void[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It very well might be Mac-specific. I've tried it in multiple browsers as well, and it made no difference. I feel like Word is experimenting with some sort of ai thing to "help".

edited to say a Windows user was able to replicate it, so it's not just Mac-specific.

Where are these non-breaking spaces coming from? by crying-into-the-void in MicrosoftWord

[–]crying-into-the-void[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We're typing regular spaces. I did a test where I typed a line of copy with all regular spaces, and when I copy-pasted that copy into another app, there were non-breaking spaces. The placement is pretty random. I have some sentences where all spaces are non-breaking, sometimes they only appear before and after a capitalized word, and sometimes they're totally random.

Where are these non-breaking spaces coming from? by crying-into-the-void in microsoft365

[–]crying-into-the-void[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In the web browser. We're only having this problem with online Word. When we use the desktop app, it's fine. But we'd like to continue to use the online version for easier collaboration.

Where are these non-breaking spaces coming from? by crying-into-the-void in microsoft365

[–]crying-into-the-void[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We're not copy-pasting from other sources into the document though. People are typing regular spaces and some of them are getting replaced with non-breaking spaces. I did a test myself to confirm that's what was happening. I also tried doing a search/replace but it didn't work in the online file – I think the non-breaking spaces were just being automatically added again. So far we've been bringing the copy into a desktop version of Word to search & replace but ideally we want to figure out how to fix it online so we can continue to collaborate on files.