vs white-space:nowrap

Question

I will admit that I have a habit of using   between words when I don't want them to break (table headers for example).

Should I really style my element with white-space:nowrap? Are there any advantages/disadvantages to either if the only thing I am looking to do is keep words from wrapping?

Answer 1

There are cases where nonbreaking space cannot help:

• the word contains a hyphen (e.g. web-developer);
• hyphens: auto is used for the container element to do hyphenation automatically.

In these cases, white-space: nowrap is useful. Also, nonbreaking space works regardless of whether styles are applied to document while CSS rules solely work when styles are enabled.