Not all blank characters are the same
The characters on this page fall into three groups:
- Spaces with width. No-break space, figure space, punctuation space, thin space, hair space, narrow no-break space and ideographic space all take up room. They differ in width and in whether a line can break at them.
- Zero width characters. Zero width space, zero width non-joiner and word joiner take up no room at all. They exist to control line breaking and letter joining.
- Fillers. The Hangul filler, Hangul choseong filler and Braille pattern blank are real characters that happen to draw nothing in most fonts.
The bracket preview on each card shows how wide the character is in your current font.
What apps usually do with them
Forms and name fields often trim normal spaces from the start and end, and many remove zero width characters entirely. Fillers survive more often, which is exactly why some platforms block them in names. Behavior changes between apps and over time, so treat every choice here as something to try, not something that will work.
Responsible use
Invisible characters have real uses: keeping a number and its unit on one line, separating words in a chat without a visible space, or formatting text for specific writing systems. Using them to impersonate someone, to dodge filters, or to hide text from moderators breaks most platformsโ rules.
Check your text for hidden characters
If a username will not submit or two strings that look identical do not match, a hidden character is a common cause. Paste the text into the Unicode inspector to see every code point.