# How to fill an alphanumerical column with meaningful spaces in a grid? **URL:** \ **Category:** Forum\ **Tags:** Adabas-Natural, Natural, NaturalONE, Natural-for-AJAX\ **Created:** [July 22, 2019, 8:03pm UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/how-to-fill-an-alphanumerical-column-with-meaningful-spaces-in-a-grid/204720 "2019-07-22T20:03:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jorge\_Canessa1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d78d45/32.png) [@Jorge\_Canessa1](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/Jorge_Canessa1)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2019, 8:03pm UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/how-to-fill-an-alphanumerical-column-with-meaningful-spaces-in-a-grid/204720/1 "2019-07-22T20:03:05Z")
HI, How to fill an alphanumerical column with meaningful spaces in a grid? Since the “convertspaces” property does not work. Best regards, Jorge ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_Robinson](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/techcommunity/user_avatar/techcommunity.softwareag.com/steve_robinson/32/107_2.png) [@Steve\_Robinson](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/Steve_Robinson)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 5:36pm UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/how-to-fill-an-alphanumerical-column-with-meaningful-spaces-in-a-grid/204720/2 "2019-07-23T17:36:00Z")
Jorge, Could you clarify what it is you want to do? Perhaps with examples of what you want as a result. ---
**Author:** ![Jorge\_Canessa1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d78d45/32.png) [@Jorge\_Canessa1](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/Jorge_Canessa1)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 6:14pm UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/how-to-fill-an-alphanumerical-column-with-meaningful-spaces-in-a-grid/204720/3 "2019-07-23T18:14:54Z")
HI Steve, The text I want is like the attached image. But this text becomes as below: AAAAA FFFFF NNNNNNN XXXXXXXX HHHHHHH XXXXXXXXXXX HHHHH YYYYY DDDDD RRRRRRRRRRRRRRR TTT ZZZZZZZZZZ Spaces are deleted. The same thing happens with the Label tag. Best regards, Jorge ![Spaces.jpg](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/techcommunity/original/2X/f/f0f76474535719285c5a62550418b2010ddbb4d9.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_Robinson](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/techcommunity/user_avatar/techcommunity.softwareag.com/steve_robinson/32/107_2.png) [@Steve\_Robinson](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/Steve_Robinson)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 10:12pm UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/how-to-fill-an-alphanumerical-column-with-meaningful-spaces-in-a-grid/204720/4 "2019-07-23T22:12:54Z")
Forget “convertspaces”. Do you have the data as you want it; that is, as shown in spaces.jpg? If so, why do you have to convert anything? ---
**Author:** ![Christine\_Zimmermann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@Christine\_Zimmermann](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/Christine_Zimmermann)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 10:33pm UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/how-to-fill-an-alphanumerical-column-with-meaningful-spaces-in-a-grid/204720/5 "2019-07-23T22:33:43Z")
Hi Jorge, hi Steve, The “convertspaces” property in the COLUMN controls works in my environment when the page is rendered in the browser. It converts a space into & nbsp; so that the space is visible in the browser. But it currently has no impacts on the generated PDF. Apache FOP per default sets white-space-collapse=“true”, which means that additional spaces are not preserved. If in the PDF generation white-space-collapse=“false” would be used, the white spaces would be visible in the pdf. The cisfo\* controls currently don’t support a corresponding property “convertspaces” based on which white-space-collapse could be set to true or false. A possible workaround could be: In your data use & #160; instead of space. !!! Without blank between &and#, I just had to add it because the forum tool also converts it into a space 🙂 Instead of " A A A " you would have “& #160;AA& #160;& #160;A& #160;” Then the spaces are rendered in the PDF as expected. Best Regards, Christine ---
**Author:** ![Jorge\_Canessa1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d78d45/32.png) [@Jorge\_Canessa1](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/Jorge_Canessa1)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2019, 2:06pm UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/how-to-fill-an-alphanumerical-column-with-meaningful-spaces-in-a-grid/204720/6 "2019-07-24T14:06:10Z")
Hi Christine. I will try your solution. Thanks again. Best regards Jorge ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/techcommunity/original/3X/c/d/cd19967bb605d28a72d77eb83a1cae22f3df2eb8.svg) [@system](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2021, 3:43pm UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/how-to-fill-an-alphanumerical-column-with-meaningful-spaces-in-a-grid/204720/7 "2021-04-02T15:43:10Z")