A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) cannot contain empty spaces. According to the RFC 3986 standard, spaces are considered 'unsafe' characters because they risk being cut off or misinterpreted by web browsers, resulting in broken links and 400 Bad Request errors. If you have a file named 'my cool document.pdf' and you try to link to it directly, the browser stops reading at 'my', breaking the request.

To fix this, the space character must be perfectly converted into its URL-encoded equivalent: %20 (or sometimes a + sign, depending on the form data standard). Using our dedicated tool, you can instantly turn paragraphs of unformatted text or file names into web-safe URL strings with all spaces properly escaped.

While both `%20` and `+` represent a space, they are used in different parts of a URL. A space within the path of a URL (like a file name) should be encoded strictly as `%20`. However, inside the query string part of the URL (after the `?` symbol) processing standards often convert spaces into a `+` sign. Our tool gives you the exact raw encoding needed to make sure your applications parse spaces without missing a beat.