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Where are the settings to show a space, tab, paragraph, CRLF, etc. (extended) characters?

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    If you happen to add a control character by mistake, or you suspect that there may be a control character causing you errors, my recommendation is to cut the suspected code section out, paste it in Notepad++, find and remove the culprit, then cut the code and paste it back into Visual Studio. This is the easiest way, and it works every time. So keep a copy of Notepad++ installed, just in case.
    – Samir
    Commented Jul 2, 2017 at 15:00

12 Answers 12

Reset to default
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Edit > Advanced > View White Space. The keyboard shortcut is CTRL+R, CTRL+W. The command is called Edit.ViewWhiteSpace.

It works in all Visual Studio versions at least since Visual Studio 2010, the current one being Visual Studio 2019 (at time of writing). In Visual Studio 2013, you can also use CTRL+E, S or CTRL+E, CTRL+S.

By default, end of line markers are not visualized. This functionality is provided by the End of the Line extension.

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    This doesn't answer the original question fully. The question was about white space characters and new line characters (hence "CRLF"). This option does not show the new line characters.
    – Alex
    Commented Nov 12, 2014 at 6:44
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    Is there an extension for VS 2019? End of the Line only supports up to 2017
    – Kir
    Commented Jul 12, 2019 at 14:38
  • As of VS 2019 16.8.1 "Edit" -> "Advanced" has shrunk away to almost nothing. Which means it's either moved someplace else, or been removed. The keyboard shortcut Ctrl-R, Ctrl-W still works, so at least it's still possible
    – dgnuff
    Commented Nov 13, 2020 at 3:19
  • @dgnuff Wait, what? I still have Advanced in VS 2019 v16.10.2 with about 25 options in it. Perhaps you've customized VS without realizing it? Importing a profile can do that, eg. || Btw, it's amazing to look through the history of the edits to this answer. I think it's more Palec's than Fourth's at this point, at the expense of Pavel, whose answer Palec incorporated into this one in 2018. Weird.
    – ruffin
    Commented Jul 16, 2021 at 19:31
  • Great ! Is there a way to add this command as a button in a toolbar ? I can't find that option.
    – Roger
    Commented Mar 25, 2022 at 7:38
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Edit -> Advanced -> View White Space or Ctrl+R,Ctrl+W for Visual Studio 2019

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    Thank you for providing the name and location of the menu item. Very annoying when people just give you keyboard shortcuts (which change from version to version and may differ by configuration).
    – Kristopher Johnson
    Commented Aug 12, 2015 at 13:18
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    And there is no option to show newlines. Unfortunately.
    – yoyo
    Commented Apr 26, 2016 at 5:39
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    Doesn't appear to exist in VS2015
    – Johnny_D
    Commented Jun 8, 2016 at 11:29
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    @Johnny_D it exists but you must have a file opened. If you have no files opened for editing, then you don't see the Advanced -> View White Space part.
    – Stoyan Dimov
    Commented Jun 22, 2016 at 13:13
  • Ctrl+R for me opens a search box and Ctrl+W closes a tab
    – John Balvin Arias
    Commented May 30, 2023 at 2:48
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Display white space characters

Menu: You can toggle the visibility of the white space characters from the menu: Edit > Advanced > View White Space.

Button: If you want to add the button to a toolbar, it is called Toggle Visual Space in the command category "Edit".
The actual command name is: Edit.ViewWhiteSpace.

Keyboard Shortcut: In Visual Studio 2015, 2017 and 2019 the default keyboard shortcut still is CTRL+R, CTRL+W
Type one after the other.
All default shortcuts

End-of-line characters

Extension: There is a minimal extension adding the displaying of end-of-line characters (LF and CR) to the visual white space mode, as you would expect. Additionally it supplies buttons and short-cuts to modify all line-endings in a document, or a selection.
VisualStudio gallery: End of the Line

Note: Since Visual Studio 2017 there is no option in the File-menu called Advanced Save Options. Changing the encoding and line-endings for a file can be done using Save File As ... and clicking the down-arrow on the right side of the save-button. This shows the option Save with Encoding. You'll be asked permission to overwrite the current file.

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    That's what I needed, I could find the command name but when adding buttons there's no way to search for anything so it's a guessing game.
    – Andrew Queisser
    Commented May 1, 2018 at 23:47
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    End of the line does not support VS2019 as at Sept 2020
    – Felix
    Commented Sep 20, 2020 at 23:00
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    @Felix sadly the extension hasn't been updated. It still works, but requires some manual edits, see the marketplace page and a comment from daixian. marketplace.visualstudio.com/…
    – Farway
    Commented Nov 12, 2020 at 0:08
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My problem was hitting CTRL+F and space

This marked all spaces brown. Spent 10 minutes to "turn it off" :P

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If you use Visual Studio Code => View => Render Whitespace That's it! For me this setting was on, but didn't work. I had to turn it off and on again and than it worked! So this is a bug in Visual Studio Code!

If you use Visual Studio 2022 you can change the display options for whitespace etc. in Tools => Options => Text Editor => General and select "View whitespace"

enter image description here

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  • Answer to a question that was not asked.
    – FractalSpace
    Commented Dec 6, 2022 at 16:47
  • I added this answers because I had the exact same problem, only Visual Studio Code didn't exist 11 years ago...
    – Cerveser
    Commented Dec 6, 2022 at 19:46
  • I've added the answer for Visual Studio 2022 too.
    – Cerveser
    Commented Dec 6, 2022 at 19:59
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The correct shortcut is CTRL-R-W like you don't have to release CTRL button while pressing W. This worked for me in VS 2015

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  • CTRL-R-W will close the tab and open a search box becasue Ctrl+R for me opens a search box and Ctrl+W closes a tab
    – John Balvin Arias
    Commented May 30, 2023 at 2:51
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For those who are looking for a button toggle:

The name of this command is View white space in GUI menu (Edit -> Advanced -> View white space).

Menu toggle

The name of this command in the Add command popup is Toggle Visual Space.

Button toggle.

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For Visual Studio for Mac, you can find it under Visual Studio -> Preferences -> Text Editor -> Markers and Rulers -> Show invisible characters

Visual Studio for Mac 2019
You may need to restart Visual Studio for the changes to take effect.

Visual Studio for Mac 2022
You can enable this feature only for selected text, or always, and choose to show line endings, spaces and/or tabs. Changes will take effect immediately.

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  • This is the dumbest design decision I have seen in VS. I usually only want to see the whitespace for a minute while I verify and fix tab/spaces etc. I don't want to see it all the time. I have to restart VS to see the whitespace? What idiot thought this was a good idea? Why didn't they do it like Windows?
    – Pierre
    Commented Jul 30, 2020 at 20:03
  • You can report a problem for visual studio for mac using this link @Pierre: developercommunity.visualstudio.com/content/problem/…
    – Paiman Roointan
    Commented Aug 1, 2020 at 12:43
  • Thank you for your constructive suggestion @Paiman Roointan. I have submitted to the Forum: developercommunity.visualstudio.com/content/problem/1139872/…
    – Pierre
    Commented Aug 6, 2020 at 13:47
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The shortcut didn't work for me in Visual Studio 2015, also it was not in the edit menu.

Download and install the Productivity Power Tools for VS2015 and than you can find these options in the edit > advanced menu.

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    You can see them in the edit menu if there is a file open
    – pete the pagan-gerbil
    Commented Oct 28, 2016 at 8:21
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To see the CRLF you can try this extension: End of the Line

It works for VS2012+

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  • Can it display other characters like STX and ETX?
    – Samir
    Commented Jul 2, 2017 at 14:54
  • Unfortunately no.
    – Roberto Tronci
    Commented Jul 3, 2017 at 13:20
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For completeness since I haven't seen it mentioned here, it is also in Options->Text Editor->General->View Whitespace.

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In the actual version this Option ist under Editor: Render Whitespace

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