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A soft hyphen is used in HTML to indicate line breaks and in desktop publishing to split words over two lines. It can be used by spammers to hide messages and URLs. Zero-width space and non-breaking space are similar invisible characters used for text display.
The definition of a soft hyphen (SHY) varies depending on whether it is used in hypertext markup language (HTML) for computing or in print. In HTML, SHY is used to indicate where a line break should be. If typed at the end of a line, it will appear as a regular dash; if it is in the middle of a line, it will not appear as a visible mark. In desktop publishing, SHY appears within a hyphenation zone set near the end of a line of text to split a word over two lines. For both HTML and desktop publishing, a regular dash always appears as a regular character.
Not all Internet browsers have always recognized the soft dash. On pages in browsers that ignore the code, it will always appear as a regular dash. It will also ignore HTML instructions for line breaks.
The soft dash is used by some spam email senders in an attempt to hide the headers or body of messages from spam filters. It can also be used to hide a real URL so that a user clicks on a link to a spam web page. While this method fools some spam filters, there are other filters that have advanced features that can catch the trick.
For desktop publishing tasks like layout and word processing, soft dash follows most of the same rules as HTML. One of the main differences is that the soft dash disappears if text alterations due to changes in elements such as margins or pagination change the position of the hyphenation zone. Guidelines for starting the hyphenation zone will usually be programmed into the software. Some programs allow the user to change the parameters of this zone.
Zero-width space (ZWSP) and non-breaking space work similar to soft dash to change the way text is displayed. As with the soft dash, zero-width space does not appear on the page. It is an invisible character used to indicate where a word stops, or potentially where a line break should be, when specific spacing instructions are needed. The non-breaking space, also known as a non-breaking space (NBSP), does the opposite of the soft dash and prevents a line break at a particular location. It also has an invisible HTML code on the published page.
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