Techniques are described for preserving the original insignificant white space of XML data. The techniques may be used in combination with compact XML data storage formats, such as binary XML, to preserve the insignificant white space without requiring as much storage space as uncompressed formats. White space opcodes/operand pairs are described for representing white space characters and white space patterns. The white space opcode/operand pairs represent the white space in binary XML, are use to generate the original white space when the binary XML is decoded back to textual XML data.