How to retain leading space in content field entry

Sorry, I don't follow. Do you mean I need to edit the css of the backend Perch form?

To clarify, I enter " word" and it saves it as "word". I just want it to not trim the space from in front.

OK - solved this. I am using a hyphen in the text box, but converting it later in php to replace with a space.

Alan, padding or margin css would do this as Rachel recommends above, then you wouldn’t have to do anything to modify the content for visual appeal.

R. K

I understand in some cases CSS isn't the way to go, but you still wouldn't add leading space in the content. You can just add white space in your template though. An example from the default Blog templates templates/blog/author_name.html:

<perch:blog id="authorGivenName" type="text" /> <perch:blog id="authorFamilyName" type="text" />

The above outputs: authorGivenName authorFamilyName with whitespace between them. If there's whitespace in your template, Perch keeps it that way.

Thanks for all the replies, and I can understand now why you are suggesting css. Sorry... my fault... I didn't explain the problem clearly enough.

The field is actually a modifier for the slug and it is used to create page titles and h1 headings. And it sometimes needs a space, and sometimes it doesn't. So if the slug is "trumpet" I put "s" into this field and it makes the title "trumpets". But sometimes the slug might be "violin" and I want to enter a modifier " strings" to make the title "violin strings". So I was looking for a way to stop that stripping out of the leading space when the record was saved.

Actually the solution with the hyphen is fine because you can see more clearly in the record that you have entered the space in there. Cheers.

Great idea Duncan! That's a much neater solution. I'll do it that way. Thanks for the suggestion. Cheers.

Edit. Took me 10 mins to set up and works beautifully!