<p>How can I strip out extra whitespace from jsp pages' output?  Is there a switch I can flip on my web.xml?  Is there a Tomcat specific setting?</p>

There is a trimWhiteSpaces directive that should accomplish this,
In your JSP:
```
```
<%@ page trimDirectiveWhitespaces="true" %>
```
```
Or in the jsp-config section your web.xml (Note that this works starting from servlet specification 2.5.):
```
```
<jsp-config>
  <jsp-property-group>
    <url-pattern>*.jsp</url-pattern>
    <trim-directive-whitespaces>true</trim-directive-whitespaces>
  </jsp-property-group>
</jsp-config>
```
```
Unfortunately if you have a required space it might also need strip that, so you may need a non-breaking space in some locations.