Emacs: Make Whitespaces Visible

Alt+x whitespace-mode (in emacs 23 or later), to make all whitespaces visible.

Alt+x whitespace-newline-mode to make (only) newline visible.

whitespace-mode renders {spaces, tabs, newlines} characters with a visible glyph.

To use it, call:

• whitespace-mode → toggle on/off, for current file.
• global-whitespace-mode → toggle on/off globally for current emacs session.

There is also whitespace-newline-mode and global-whitespace-newline-mode. They only show newline chars.

Setting Up whitespace-mode

Download sample test file: whitespace_sample_file.txt

For a simple and clean whitespace mode setup, put the following in your emacs init.

(progn
 ;; Make whitespace-mode with very basic background coloring for whitespaces.
  ;; http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/whitespace-mode.html
  (setq whitespace-style (quote (face spaces tabs newline space-mark tab-mark newline-mark )))

  ;; Make whitespace-mode and whitespace-newline-mode use “¶” for end of line char and “▷” for tab.
  (setq whitespace-display-mappings
        ;; all numbers are unicode codepoint in decimal. e.g. (insert-char 182 1)
        '(
          (space-mark 32 [183] [46]) ; SPACE 32 「 」, 183 MIDDLE DOT 「·」, 46 FULL STOP 「.」
          (newline-mark 10 [182 10]) ; LINE FEED,
          (tab-mark 9 [9655 9] [92 9]) ; tab
          )))

In the above, the numbers are Unicode codepoint in decimal. Depending on your choice of font, some glyphs may not show up or correctly. If so, you can try the following glyphs.

Glyph	Unicode Code Point (Decimal)	Unicode Name
·	183	MIDDLE DOT
¶	182	PILCROW SIGN
↵	8629	DOWNWARDS ARROW WITH CORNER LEFTWARDS
↩	8617	LEFTWARDS ARROW WITH HOOK
⏎	9166	RETURN SYMBOL
▷	9655	WHITE RIGHT POINTING TRIANGLE
▶	9654	BLACK RIGHT-POINTING TRIANGLE
→	8594	RIGHTWARDS ARROW
↦	8614	RIGHTWARDS ARROW FROM BAR
⇥	8677	RIGHTWARDS ARROW TO BAR
⇨	8680	RIGHTWARDS WHITE ARROW

See also: Unicode: ASCII Character Symbols ␀ ␤ ␠ ␣ ¶ ↩