X200B

X200B refers to the Unicode code point U+200B, commonly called ZERO WIDTH SPACE. It is a non-printing formatting character with zero visible width in text. In the Unicode standard, it resides in the General Punctuation block and functions as a boundary indicator without introducing a visible space.

Encoding and representations: In UTF-8, U+200B is encoded as E2 80 8B. In HTML it can be represented as ​ or ​. In CSS and programming languages, it can be included with escape sequences such as \u200B or \x{200B}. It generally behaves as whitespace for wrapping decisions but prints no visible glyph.

Uses and behavior: It is used to affect text wrapping, line breaking, and word segmentation in scripts that rely on explicit boundaries. It can be inserted by editors and typesetting systems to create a breaking opportunity without adding a visible space. It can also be employed in steganography or obfuscation to hide information within text, and some filters attempt to remove or normalize zero-width characters for security or content-cleaning purposes.

Limitations and considerations: Some software may strip or ignore zero-width spaces, causing loss of intended wrapping behavior or subtle layout changes. They may affect search indexing or text comparison, and can introduce accessibility issues if misused. When copying text between systems, ZWSPs may be retained or removed unpredictably depending on the platform.

See also: Zero width non-joiner (U+200C), zero width joiner (U+200D), and related formatting characters.