Unbreakable space smaller than ~

Question

Using the cleveref package for reference ranges, I'd like to change the standard \crefrangeconjunction from _to~ to _-_, where the underscores represent spaces. Issuing

\newcommand{\crefrangeconjunction}{~-~}

I find the spaces are much too large. Defining instead

\newcommand{\crefrangeconjunction}{\,-\,}

is more compact and looks much better in my eyes but has the disadvantage of breaking at line ends.

Is there an unbreakable space smaller than ~?

btw: most typographical guidelines would use n-dashes, not hyphens, for this purpose and would not have spaces (let alone full spaces like ~) around the dash. — Florian, May 31 '17 at 12:33
Related/duplicate: How to typeset a “small” non-breaking space — cgnieder, May 31 '17 at 12:41
@Florian I'm aware of that. In fact, the cleveref documentation itself says "it is perfectly reasonable to define it [\crefrangeconjunction] to be an endash “--”". Call me crazy, but I really can't stand the look of it, though, so I'll stick with a hyphen for now. :) — Janosh, May 31 '17 at 13:00

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered May 31 '17 at 12:34

It's - that's causing the break, not \,.

\documentclass{article}

\newcommand{\unbreakablethinspace}{\leavevmode\,}

\begin{document}

\parbox{0pt}{
  a\unbreakablethinspace-\unbreakablethinspace b

  a\unbreakablethinspace\mbox{-}\unbreakablethinspace b
}

\end{document}

Hiding - in a box disallows the possibility of breaking at it.

I defined \unbreakablethinspace because \, might give surprises if used at the beginning of a paragraph. You can simply use \, if you're sure it will always go after a word.

Unbreakable space smaller than ~

1 Answers1