liquid/basics/whitespace.md

---
title: Whitespace control
description: An overview of controlling whitespace between code in the Liquid template language.
---

In Liquid, you can include a hyphen in your tag syntax `{% raw %}{{-{% endraw %}`, `{% raw %}-}}{% endraw %}`, `{% raw %}{%-{% endraw %}`, and `{% raw %}-%}{% endraw %}` to strip whitespace from the left or right side of a rendered tag.

Normally, even if it doesn't output text, any line of Liquid in your template will still output a blank line in your rendered HTML:

<p class="code-label">Input</p>
{% raw %}
``` liquid
{% assign my_variable = "tomato" %}
{{ my_variable }}
```
{% endraw %}

Notice the blank line before "tomato" in the rendered template:

<p class="code-label">Output</p>
``` text
{% assign my_variable = "tomato" %}
{{ my_variable }}
```

By including hyphens in your `assign` tag, you can strip the generated whitespace from the rendered template:

<p class="code-label">Input</p>
{% raw %}
``` liquid
{%- assign my_variable = "tomato" -%}
{{ my_variable }}
```
{% endraw %}

<p class="code-label">Output</p>
``` text
tomato
```

If you don't want any of your tags to output whitespace, as a general rule you can add hyphens to both sides of all your tags (`{% raw %}{%-{% endraw %}` and `{% raw %}-%}{% endraw %}`):

<p class="code-label">Input</p>
{% raw %}
``` liquid
{% assign username = "John G. Chalmers-Smith" %}
{% if username and username.size > 10 %}
  Wow, {{ username }}, you have a long name!
{% else %}
  Hello there!
{% endif %}
```
{% endraw %}

<p class="code-label">Output without whitespace control</p>
``` text
{% assign username = "John G. Chalmers-Smith" %}
{% if username and username.size > 10 %}
  Wow, {{ username }}, you have a long name!
{% else %}
  Hello there!
{% endif %}
```

<p class="code-label">Input</p>
{% raw %}
``` liquid
{%- assign username = "John G. Chalmers-Smith" -%}
{%- if username and username.size > 10 -%}
  Wow, {{ username }}, you have a long name!
{%- else -%}
  Hello there!
{%- endif -%}
```
{% endraw %}

<p class="code-label">Output with whitespace control</p>
``` text
Wow, John G. Chalmers-Smith, you have a long name!
```