If the character display and printing routines of an operating system require fonts to specify a glyph for a non-breaking space, this allows them to make it, say, a different width than a regular space. Since the only distinction between the two entities is supposed to be how they behave when breaking lines of text, these routines should instead "eat" the non-breaking space, and ask the font for a regular one.

However, that's just my personal opinion based on general principles. What font designers would really need to do is consult the OpenType standards (or TrueType standards, or whatever) to find out what they are required to do in order for their fonts to work properly on all applicable platforms.

I've found some threads with information about this:

http://typophile.com/node/68985?page=1

A font with a nonexistent nbsp character will cause problems in the Opera browser, and

http://www.typophile.com/node/51198?page=1

one with an nbsp character that's the wrong width will cause problems in InDesign.

>It seems like I'm the only font designer concerned with including it.

No, you're not. And keep doing it.

Hello,

In some fonts the unicode value 0x0020 (SPACE) and 0x00A0 (NO-BREAK SPACE) are assigned to the same glyph. 'uni00A0' is also a valid name for the none braking space.

Eigi

PS
hex codes in old style figures are looking curious ;-)

The system fonts on your computer are not a useful reference for font mastering because many of them have not been touched by human hands in 10 or more years. Time passes. Software changes. Word 2007 and 2010, for instance, also require an nbspace character.

Thanks to all who answered my question.