# Sticky Italics **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [July 2, 2002, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sticky-italics/117091 "2002-07-02T19:53:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![The\_Wrong\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b782af/32.png) [@The\_Wrong\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Wrong_Girl)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2002, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sticky-italics/117091/1 "2002-07-02T19:53:13Z")
No matter how often I preview, and move the words around, whenever I italicize something, it always ends up looking like _this_. What can I do to make the _italicized_ word look more separate from words around it, and not like it’s a part of them? ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2002, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sticky-italics/117091/2 "2002-07-02T23:13:56Z")
I admit I’m confused here. Do you want more space between the italicized word and the others? Or do you think mere italics doesn’t distinguish the word enough? ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2002, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sticky-italics/117091/3 "2002-07-03T00:20:48Z")
Your web browsere compresses spaces. If you include more than one space between two words, only one space will be displayed. It’s a feature, not a bug. [HTML 4.01 Specification](http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/text.html#idx-white_space-2) > [@](#): > > In particular, user agents should collapse input white space sequences when producing output inter-word space. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2002, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sticky-italics/117091/4 "2002-07-03T02:04:13Z")
I remember someone asking this before so I put it in the technical issues FAQ. ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2002, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sticky-italics/117091/5 "2002-07-03T06:38:23Z")
If you want a space not to be compressed, you can use the so-called “non-breaking space”. To use it, enter the following:   So for instance: I want     _this_     word to be separated. appears like this: I want     _this_     word to be separated. I’m fairly sure that this feature should be supported by all browsers. Also, I should point out that in your original post, the italicized words do not look compressed with the words around them. What browser are you using? ---
**Author:** ![Algernon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a183cd/32.png) [@Algernon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algernon)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2002, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sticky-italics/117091/6 "2002-07-03T12:42:27Z")
**Achernar** , that “non-breaking space” is a     _cool_     feature that I didn’t know existed. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Wrong\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b782af/32.png) [@The\_Wrong\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Wrong_Girl)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2002, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sticky-italics/117091/7 "2002-07-03T13:06:32Z")
Wow–thanks, guys! I got home and saw that everything looked okay and thought “Geez, they’re gonna think I’m totally nuts.” Nice to know it’s just my browser. Thanks for telling me how to fix it, too. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2002, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sticky-italics/117091/8 "2002-07-03T15:36:31Z")
I also forgot to add that if the words seem too close when you use italics, it could be because of the font and/or font size used by the different browser. ---
**Author:** ![femtosecond](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f08c70/32.png) [@femtosecond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/femtosecond)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2002, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sticky-italics/117091/9 "2002-07-04T13:48:49Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Arnold Winkelried_ > **I also forgot to add that if the words seem too close when you use italics, it could be because of the font and/or font size used by the different browser.** FWIW, I have a similar problem with my fonts/browser. When someone uses the symbol font to display the TM symbol (you should use ™ instead, anyway), the beginning of the following text appears squashed into it.