&nbsp

#text

#dom

#ascii

#unicode

The No-Break Space is very similar to a Word-Joiner, just as it's very similar to a Space. But each, has very different usages. All of these variations exist to represent different widths and functions of a space character.

U+00A0 No-Break Space   represented similarly to a space character, it prevents an automatic line break.
U+2007 Figure Space   a space somewhat equal to the figures (0–9) characters.
U+202F Narrow No-Break Space   or &nnbsp;) used to separate a suffix from a word stem without indicating a word boundary. Approximately 1/3 the representative space of a normal space though it may vary by font.
U+2060 Word-Joiner ⁠ representative by no visible character, it prohibits a line break at its position.

Other No-Break Characters

NON-BREAKING HYPHEN (U+2011)
FIGURE SPACE (U+2007)
NARROW NO-BREAK SPACE (U+202F)
TIBETAN MARK DELIMITER TSHEG BSTAR (U+0F0C)

W3C recommends using the Word-Joiner whenever you need to connect two characters or words so that they do not wrap. <sup>[1]</sup>

To get the same functionality, formerly provided by the ZERO-WIDTH NON-BREAKING SPACE authors should use a WORD JOINER (U+2060) instead

However, no-where in the HTML4 Character Reference is <kbd>Word-Joiner</kbd> mentioned. <sup>[2]</sup>

In addition to these characters the <kbd>SOFT HYPHEN (U+00AD)</kbd> can be used to provide line-break hints within words that UAs might not have in their own hyphenation dictionaries.

The only characters that are explicitly discouraged are <kbd>ZERO WIDTH NON-JOINER (U+200C)</kbd>: prevents ligation and cursive connections between characters that would otherwise ligate or join cursively.
- <kbd>ZERO WIDTH JOINER (U+200D)</kbd>: encourages ligation and cursive connections.