This is my XML file
===================
<list list-type="number">
<list-item>
<label>1.#160;</label><p>They used tall pieces of wood so that the <emphasis type="italic">fence</emphasis> would keep the dog in the garden.</p>
<p>Becky used a <emphasis type="italic">blas</emphasis> #x0028;<emphasis type="italic">cake</emphasis>#x0029; to dig a hole in the ground.</p>
</list-item>
<list-item>
<label>2.#160;</label><p>James laughed because the <emphasis type="italic">fork</emphasis> #x0028;<emphasis type="italic">gler</emphasis>#x0029; looked so funny.</p>
</list-item>


This is XSL coding
==================
<xsl:template match="list[@list-type='simple' or @list-type='bullet' or @list-type='number']/list-item">
<table><tr><td valign="top" width="5"><xsl:value-of select="label"/><text>#160;#160;</text></td>
<td><p align="justify"><xsl:apply-templates/></p></td></tr></table>
</xsl:template>

This is my output currently
===========================
Familiar referent stories
1. They used tall pieces of wood so that the fence would keep the dog in the garden. Becky used a blas
( cake ) to dig a hole in the ground.

2. James laughed because the fork ( gler ) looked so funny.



Can anyone please help me to take out the extra space around the words "( cake )" and "( gler )"

Thanks

Somewhere in your stylesheet there is code that is generating this whitespace, but you haven't shown it.

It's better to show the HTML output as it appears in a text editor, not as it appears in the browser. That makes it easier to see what's going on.

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/
Author, XSLT Programmer's Reference and XPath 2.0 Programmer's Reference

What I have posted is a copy of my HTML output or may be my understanding about your need is not right. Can you please be little more specific.

Thanks