Regex expression to replace certain spaces with nonbreaking spaces

[Dashcroft]

Hi,
I would like to automatically find and replace the spaces in "T. S. Eliot", "D. H. Lawrence", "F. R. Leavis" and similarly patterned names with non-breaking spaces. I've tried:

Find:

[A-Z]\.\s

Replace:

\g<0>&#nbsp;

But that still leaves the spaces in. What am I doing wrong and what might help in this case?

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by Dashcroft

I would like to automatically find and replace the spaces in "T. S. Eliot", "D. H. Lawrence", "F. R. Leavis" and similarly patterned names with non-breaking spaces.

I explained all of this (and other examples) in extreme detail in:

• 2021: "RegEx: Insert nbs between initials, etc."

- - -

Side Note: If you wanted even more fantastic regex tips/tricks, see my posts a few months ago in:

• 2022: "False paragraph breaks & RegEx"

I linked to a ton of the previous topics + step-by-step breakdowns of helpful regular expressions.

- - -

Originally Posted by Dashcroft

What am I doing wrong and what might help in this case?

And may I ask why you're trying to use NBSPs in your ebooks? Is there any specific reason or issue you were trying to solve?

[Dashcroft]

Thank you very much for pointing me to the right thread! I'll go with:

Find:

([A-Z])\. ([A-Z])\. ([A-Z])

Replace:

\1.\xA0\2.\xA0\3

and replace "xA0" with the appropriate code for a nonbreaking space in Calibre.

That seems to suit me perfectly.

Since you asked, I just don't like line breaks after the first or second initial when I read a book on my Kindle.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Dashcroft

and replace "xA0" with the appropriate code for a nonbreaking space in Calibre.

For what it's worth,   is the same as & #160; and  . HTML5 which the basis for Epub3 CSS deprecated all but the big 5 named entities so you would have to explicitly define any named entities other than ", ', &, <, >.