Blank Space Copy and Paste (Invisible Characters)

What is a blank space character?

A blank space character is a real character that draws nothing, or draws only empty room. Your space bar types one kind. Unicode, the standard that gives every character a number, contains dozens of others: spaces of different widths, characters with no width at all, and a few letters from other alphabets that look empty on screen.

That variety is the reason this page exists. When an app says a name or message can't be empty, it usually means it can't be made of ordinary whitespace. A different blank character often gets past that check, because the app doesn't count it as whitespace.

How to copy and paste a blank space

1. Press Copy blank space at the top of the page. The character is now on your clipboard, though you won't see anything.
2. Open the app, tap the field where you want the blank, and paste it as you would any text.
3. Check the result. If the app rejects it or shows a box, come back and try another character from the list.

On a phone, the same steps work: tap Copy, switch apps, and long-press the field to paste. There's no keyboard shortcut for most of these characters, which is why copying is the practical way.

Why a normal space doesn't work, and this does

Many apps trim spaces from the start and end of what you type, then reject the field if nothing is left. Programs make that decision using Unicode categories. An ordinary space, a no-break space and an em space are all classed as space separators, so they get trimmed.

The Hangul filler (U+3164) is different. Unicode classes it as a letter, not as whitespace, so a check that strips spaces leaves it alone. The Braille blank (U+2800) is classed as a symbol, and the zero-width space (U+200B) as a format character. Those categories are what make them behave as blanks without being treated as spaces. We confirmed these categories against Unicode data while building this page.

Which blank character should you use?

• For a blank name or message: start with the Hangul filler (U+3164), then the Braille blank (U+2800).
• For a wider gap in text: use an em space (U+2003) or the ideographic space (U+3000). Apps that strip normal spaces may strip these too.
• For no visible width at all: the zero-width space (U+200B). It's invisible, but programs often don't treat it as whitespace, so it can cause trouble in forms, code and links.
• For a space that won't wrap to the next line: the no-break space (U+00A0).

Where it works, and where it doesn't

We can't test every app on every phone, and apps change their rules without notice, so treat what follows as general experience, not a guarantee.

• Display names and nicknames in games and chat apps often accept a blank character, but some refuse names that contain nothing else. If that happens, put a blank character before or after a visible one. Our Free Fire name generator includes a blank-space button and a character counter, and our guide to fancy text on Discord covers Discord's name rules.
• Messages that look empty are possible in many chat apps when you paste a blank character, though some apps strip them or refuse to send.
• Line gaps in social media bios and captions are a common use, since some apps remove ordinary blank lines. Our guide to changing the font in an Instagram bio covers the field limits.
• Usernames and handles almost never allow it. Those fields usually accept only a small set of plain characters.
• Passwords and logins should never contain it. A hidden character you can't see is a fast way to lock yourself out.

When invisible characters cause problems

Invisible characters are also a common source of bugs, which is why the checker above is useful. They sneak in when you copy text from a web page, a PDF or a chat. Symptoms include a form that rejects an input that looks fine, a search that finds nothing, two names that look identical but don't match, and a spreadsheet lookup that fails.

Paste the text into the checker. It lists every hidden or unusual space it finds, with its Unicode code. You can then swap them for normal spaces or remove them, and copy the clean text.

Use it responsibly

A blank character is just text, and there's nothing wrong with a blank nickname or a tidy gap in a bio. But don't use it to impersonate someone, to hide text from moderators, or to get around a rule, because platforms may remove it, and it can get an account flagged. Blank characters can also confuse screen readers, which may skip them or announce them, so avoid putting anything important after one.

More tools on this site

If you want decoration around a name, the fancy text generator has more than 100 styles, and the symbols library has over 1,900 characters in 29 categories. For text pictures, see the ASCII art collection. If a character shows as an empty box, our guide to fixing boxes and question marks explains why.

For the technical background, the Unicode Consortium publishes the full character charts at unicode.org/charts, and Wikipedia's overview of whitespace characters explains how the different kinds of space relate to each other.

Notes on accuracy

We built this page from standard Unicode characters and checked each code point's name and category against the Unicode character database. We haven't tested every character in every app. If one doesn't work where you need it, or an app's rules have changed, tell us and we'll update the page.