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| Syntax and mark-up / Special characters and dates | |
Special characters may be inserted into DITA content using Unicode character escapes.
Your authoring tool may allow the insertion of non-breaking spaces between words. Non-breaking spaces are intended for use when the separation of two adjacent words through line wrapping will result in a loss of meaning or legibility. For example, some authors prefer values and their units, such as "12 kg", to be treated as a single word.
Likewise, soft hyphens are intended for use when there is a preferred point for the breaking of a word during line wrapping.
Some mark-up languages support entities, which allow special characters (not included in the standard character set or not associated with keyboard keys) to be defined using a memorable shortcut. For example, HTML has a entity for non-breaking spaces. Regardless, provided a character is included in the relevant Unicode character set, it can be included in XML-based content using hexadecimal numeric character references, or character escapes.
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