# MD037 - No Spaces Inside Emphasis Markers
## Description
This rule ensures that there are no spaces inside emphasis markers (asterisks or underscores).
Spaces inside emphasis markers can cause inconsistent rendering across different Markdown processors.
## Examples
### Valid
```markdown
This is *italic* text.
This is **bold** text.
This is ***bold italic*** text.
```
### Invalid
```markdown
This is * italic with spaces * text.
This is ** bold with spaces ** text.
This is * italic with a space at the beginning* and *italic with a space at the end *.
```
### Fixed
```markdown
This is *italic with spaces* text.
This is **bold with spaces** text.
This is *italic with a space at the beginning* and *italic with a space at the end*.
```
## Special Cases
- This rule applies to both asterisk (*) and underscore (_) emphasis markers
- It checks for spaces immediately inside the opening and closing emphasis markers
- The rule does not affect spaces outside the emphasis markers
- It handles nested emphasis correctly
- The rule does not apply to code spans (backticks)
## Related Rules
- [MD049 - Emphasis style](md049.md): Ensures consistent style for emphasis markers
- [MD050 - Strong style](md050.md): Ensures consistent style for strong emphasis markers
- [MD036 - No emphasis as heading](md036.md): Prevents using emphasis instead of proper headings
## Configuration
This rule has no configuration options.
## Fix
The automatic fix for this rule removes spaces between emphasis markers and content.