Index: gc_core/js/lang_core/gc_engine.js
==================================================================
--- gc_core/js/lang_core/gc_engine.js
+++ gc_core/js/lang_core/gc_engine.js
@@ -263,11 +263,12 @@
         }
         if (sText.includes("‑")) {
             sText = sText.replace(/‑/g, "-"); // Non-Breaking Hyphen (U+2011)
         }
         if (sText.includes("@@")) {
-            sText = sText.replace(/@@+/g, "");
+            sText = sText.replace(/@@+/g, (sMatch, nOffest, sSource) => { return " ".repeat(sMatch.length) });
+            // function as replacement: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/String/replace
         }
         return sText;
     }
 
     parseText (sText, sText0, bParagraph, nOffset, sCountry, dOptions, bShowRuleId, bDebug, bContext) {

Index: gc_core/py/lang_core/gc_engine.py
==================================================================
--- gc_core/py/lang_core/gc_engine.py
+++ gc_core/py/lang_core/gc_engine.py
@@ -312,11 +312,12 @@
         if "‐" in sText:
             sText = sText.replace("‐", "-") # Hyphen (U+2010)
         if "‑" in sText:
             sText = sText.replace("‑", "-") # Non-Breaking Hyphen (U+2011)
         if "@@" in sText:
-            sText = re.sub("@@+", "", sText)
+            sText = re.sub("@@+", lambda m: " " * len(m.group(0)), sText)
+            # function as replacement: https://docs.python.org/3.7/library/re.html#re.sub
         return sText
 
     def parseText (self, sText, sText0, bParagraph, nOffset, sCountry, dOptions, bShowRuleId, bDebug, bContext):
         "parse the text with rules"
         bChange = False