monospaced fonts not respecting spaces?

Question

Why does true type fonts consolidate spaces and is there any way to stop this? I need easily add white space between words equal to the width of a space(which for monospace should be the same for all letters).

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{inconsolata}
\begin{document}
\catcode`_=11
\par\texttt{this is monospaced text    Where  are  the  spaces  ?    !!!}%
\par\texttt{this_is_monospaced_text____Where__are__the__spaces__?____!!!}
\end{document}

update:

Using \obeyspaces or \verb works BUT something seems to be ruining the spacing:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{fancyvrb}
\usetikzlibrary{matrix}

\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}%
\matrix (m) [matrix of nodes, every node/.style={font=\ttfamily},%
    row 1/.style={text width=7em, align=left,font=\ttfamily},
    row 2/.style={text width=7em, align=left,font=\ttfamily},]
    {
        \verb+A  B  C  D +\\
        \verb+Ac Ad Be Cf+\\
    };
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

The output looks like the monspace font is not used.

update2:

Weird behavior: extra spaces between ? and !!!! Breaks the tikz matrix for some reason(remove tikzpicture to get it to work):

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{fancyvrb}
\usetikzlibrary{matrix}

\begin{document}


\catcode`_=11
\par\obeyspaces{\texttt{this is monospaced text    Where  are  the  spaces  ?    !!!}}%
\par\texttt{this_is_monospaced_text____Where__are__the__spaces__?____!!!}
\catcode`_=8

\begin{tikzpicture}%
\matrix (m) [matrix of nodes, every node/.style={font=\ttfamily},%
    row 1/.style={text width=7em, align=left,font=\ttfamily},
    row 2/.style={text width=7em, align=left,font=\ttfamily},]
    {
        \verb+A  B  C  D +\\
        \verb+Ac Ad Be Cf+\\
    };
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

\obeyspaces might be what you are looking for. or more simply \verb|.. ...| — David Carlisle, Sep 03 '12 at 23:12
@DavidCarlisle Yep, but for some reason they don't seem to work well and causes some problems. See my second update. — AbstractDissonance, Sep 04 '12 at 00:04
any command requiring catcode changes (\obeyspaces, \verb, ...) does not work in the argument to another command. But normal catcode spaces are compressed by TeX before the macro layer sees the input so you have a choice: use catcode changes or use different markup such as \ for the spaces. — David Carlisle, Sep 04 '12 at 09:29

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 03 '12 at 22:44

3

\texttt just sets the typeface. It doesn't change how TeX sees spaces. If you want that, then you need to use some kind of verbatim macro or environment. Or fiddle with the catcode of space (NOT RECOMMENDED!)

answered Sep 03 '12 at 22:44

kahen

2,165

verbatim doesn't work because it seems to create a new indented paragraph. (I'm using this in a tikz matrix). Changing the catcode for space causes the space to take on a weird looking character. Verbatim does keep the extra spaces though but basically adds some vertical space to the matrix cell. – AbstractDissonance Sep 03 '12 at 23:03
@AbstractDissonance Please, add to your question the setting where you need that spaces are obeyed. – egreg Sep 03 '12 at 23:29

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 03 '12 at 23:03

You can use the package listings or the environment verbatim. An example you will see in the following MWE. Could it be that a table would better fit your issue?

%http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/70007/monospaced-fonts-not-respecting-spaces
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{listings}
\begin{document}
\par\texttt{this is monospaced text    Where  is  the  spaces  ?    !!!}

\begin{verbatim}
this is monospaced text    Where  is  the  spaces  ?    !!!
\end{verbatim}

\begin{lstlisting}[basicstyle=\ttfamily]
this is monospaced text    Where  is  the  spaces  ?    !!!
\end{lstlisting}

\begin{lstlisting}[basicstyle=\ttfamily,showspaces=true]
this is monospaced text    Where  is  the  spaces  ?    !!!
\end{lstlisting}

\end{document}

lstlisting seems to not work in my code(it's being used in a tikz matrix node). Verbatim seems to create a new \par that causes extra space in my matrix node. I sort of need an 'inline' verbatim. — AbstractDissonance, Sep 03 '12 at 23:10

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 03 '17 at 13:54

3

Another approach for short verbatim text is to use the \Verb command from the fancyvrb package; I added the obeytabs option and used tabsize to recover the alignment inside the \matrix (the characters are spaced using tabs):

Apparently, when I copy the code from my editor to this site the tabs get lost. You need to use A(tab)B(tab)C(tab)D and Ac(tab)Ad(tab)Be(tab)Cf in the code below, where (tab) stands for a tab in your editor:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fancyvrb}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{matrix}

\fvset{obeytabs}

\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}%
\matrix (m) [matrix of nodes, every node/.style={font=\ttfamily},%
    row 1/.style={text width=7em, align=left},
    row 2/.style={text width=7em, align=left}]
    {
\Verb[tabsize=2]+A  B   C   D+\\
\Verb[tabsize=1]+Ac Ad  Be  Cf+\\
    };
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

enter image description here

Using the \lstinline command from the listings package, there's no need to use tabs; simple spaces will behave as expected:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{listings}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{matrix}

\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}%
\matrix (m) [matrix of nodes, every node/.style={font=\ttfamily},%
    row 1/.style={text width=7em, align=left},
    row 2/.style={text width=7em, align=left}]
    {
\lstinline+A  B  C  D+\\
\lstinline+Ac Ad Be Cf+\\
    };
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

enter image description here

edited Jun 03 '17 at 13:54

Moriambar

11,466

answered Sep 03 '12 at 23:40

Gonzalo Medina

505,128

This works BUT spacing size doesn't seem to be correct. Seem my updated post. – AbstractDissonance Sep 03 '12 at 23:54
@AbstractDissonance please see my updated answer. – Gonzalo Medina Sep 04 '12 at 00:17
Using your exact code doesn't give the same results ;/ I end up with misalligned columns ;/ Not sure why. I'm using miktex 2.8 x64. – AbstractDissonance Sep 04 '12 at 00:22
Did you use tabs instead of spaces to separate the different groups of letters? – Gonzalo Medina Sep 04 '12 at 00:23
no, but even if I did. One line might be Ac Be Cf. So not sure if your method will work. – AbstractDissonance Sep 04 '12 at 00:26
@AbstractDissonance try with tabs; apparently when I copy the code from my editor to this site the tabs get lost. You need to use A(tab)B(tab)C(tab)D and Ac(tab)Ad(tab)Be(tab)Cf, where (tab) stands for a tab in your editor. – Gonzalo Medina Sep 04 '12 at 00:28
Ok, It works. Is there any way I can use a special character to represent the tabs(space would be best ;). Something like A..B..C.. and Aa.B..Cc.Dd.. This way I can keep it aligned in code too for better reading. e.g., can I make . be treated like a tab character? – AbstractDissonance Sep 04 '12 at 00:33
@AbstractDissonance answer updated. – Gonzalo Medina Sep 04 '12 at 00:43
Thats it! I tried that since kurt mentioned it but didn't use the \lstinline+ method and got errors. Thanks for your time! – AbstractDissonance Sep 04 '12 at 00:43

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 13 '19 at 16:21

1

Why make things complicated when there's a much simpler solution/hack to this problem? E.g. just replace all the extra intended spaces (two in this example, so "XX" are the two placeholder characters) by

\textcolor{white}{XX}

where "white" should be the color of the background. And you can apply a search and replace operation to do that quickly multiple times.

answered Feb 13 '19 at 16:21

Petoetje59

1,051

Because if you then copy-paste the text you'll get a bunch of XX. It'd be rather easy to devise a macro \GiveMeSpaces{<number>} to print <number> spaces without having to know the background color. Besides, if you need, for instance, to disable color features for a black-and-white print you'll have a nasty surprise. – Phelype Oleinik Feb 13 '19 at 16:27
The simplest of all solutions is to replace the number of wanted spaces by ~ : https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/88845/two-consecutive-spaces – Petoetje59 Feb 15 '19 at 12:23

monospaced fonts not respecting spaces?

4 Answers4