Non-breaking space / Geschütztes Leerzeichen

A fellow blawger, stud. iur. Martin Malkus, currently a law student in Marburg, offers students a layout tip for extended essays (Hausarbeiten): the NBSP, otherwise known as the non-breaking space (geschütztes Leerzeichen).

This is my ULTIMATE pet peeve (followed closely by orphaned headings*)!

It is easily brought about by simultaneously pressing [shift]+[control]+[space] (=[Umschalt]+[Strg]+[Leertaste]).

This simple wonder of word processing technology keeps whatever is left or right of the non-breaking space together, i.e. it won’t break the line at that particular point. It is practical, for example, if you want to keep the section symbol “§” together with the section number - they are, after all, separated by a space when citing German statutes and contracts (another common mistake).

It’s easy, but believe it or not, I’ve had to teach this one to numerous legal secretaries (=Renofachangestellte).

* An orphaned heading appears when a section heading appears on one page, but the first line of the section is on the next page.