I have a default handler implementation. When it gets to the character data, parsing stops. Is there a reason why this is being done? Are there any additional properties I need to set in order for it to deal with & nbsp?
It breaks because the XML object is not defined. You can add
<!DOCTYPE document SYSTEM "document.dtd" [ <!ENTITY nbsp " "> ]>
Or just use   . (Note the ";" at the end)
 
Also see here .
is not a valid xml object. You can try replacing it instead   , it does the same thing (non-breaking space).