Cannot replace non-breaking space with another glyph

[Username]

For use in technical context, I tried to modify a font so that non-breaking space (U+00A0) would become a visible character. For instance, I wish a string containing mixed spaces to be viewed like this: «To▒be, or▒not to▒be, that▒is the▒question…» (the glyph ▒ corresponds to every U+00A0).

What I did:

1. Opened existing font in FontCreator 8.0.

2. Changed the properties of both glyphs (space and ▒), as shown:



3. Exported the font in OTF format and install it.

As a result, I see the glyph in Character Map and similar contexts in place of U+00A0, but it has no effect when inserting into document:



Though I choose the new font for the document, non-breaking spaces are still displayed as empty spaces, not as ▒. The result is identical in Notepad, MS Word and on the webpage.

What did I wrong and how to do it right?

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

The problem seems to be with the application that you're using.

I added a glyph outline to non-breaking space in one of my fonts, and tested it in Serif PagePlus X8 by select the Test Font from the FontCreator Test Font window. It worked as expected.

Test Font.png (14.73 KiB) Viewed 4478 times

[g2186870]

My variant is also working as expected in Test Font window, but fails in MS Word and browser.

[Erwin Denissen]

I guess they just ignore the outlines with spacing characters. Not much you can do about that.

Why do you want this?

[g2186870]

Why do you want this?

I am developing an internal web interface for website content management in our company. In plaintext editor mode, we want to easily distinguish normal spaces from non-breaking ones (like in ¶-mode in MS Word). I think the simplest way is to use a font where these characters are displayed with different glyphs.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Other applications simply use Period Centre to show spaces, and highlighting to show non-breaking spaces.

You might want to use a GPL Licensed font for this task. Although it's for use inside your company, the license for Consolas doesn't allow you to modify it.

Spaces.png (15.07 KiB) Viewed 4469 times

[Username]

You might want to use a GPL Licensed font for this task.

Usage of GPL licensed font will solve the problem of character visibility?

[Erwin Denissen]

No, of course not. But we provide support and want people to respect font license agreements.