diff --git a/gerrit-prettify/src/main/java/com/google/gerrit/prettify/common/PrettyFormatter.java b/gerrit-prettify/src/main/java/com/google/gerrit/prettify/common/PrettyFormatter.java
index 27273a3298..068c43a2a7 100644
--- a/gerrit-prettify/src/main/java/com/google/gerrit/prettify/common/PrettyFormatter.java
+++ b/gerrit-prettify/src/main/java/com/google/gerrit/prettify/common/PrettyFormatter.java
@@ -381,15 +381,17 @@ public abstract class PrettyFormatter {
   }
 
   private SafeHtml showTabAfterSpace(SafeHtml src) {
-    src = src.replaceFirst("^(  *\t)", "<span class=\"wse\">$1</span>");
-    src = src.replaceAll("\n(  *\t)", "\n<span class=\"wse\">$1</span>");
+    final String m = "( ( |<span[^>]*>|</span>)*\t)";
+    final String r = "<span class=\"wse\">$1</span>";
+    src = src.replaceFirst("^" + m, r);
+    src = src.replaceAll("\n" + m, "\n" + r);
     return src;
   }
 
   private SafeHtml showTrailingWhitespace(SafeHtml src) {
     final String r = "<span class=\"wse\">$1</span>$2";
-    src = src.replaceAll("([ \t][ \t]*)(\r?\n)", r);
-    src = src.replaceFirst("([ \t][ \t]*)(\r?\n?)$", r);
+    src = src.replaceAll("([ \t][ \t]*)(\r?(</span>)?\n)", r);
+    src = src.replaceFirst("([ \t][ \t]*)(\r?(</span>)?\n?)$", r);
     return src;
   }
 }
diff --git a/gerrit-prettify/src/main/resources/com/google/gerrit/prettify/client/gerrit.css b/gerrit-prettify/src/main/resources/com/google/gerrit/prettify/client/gerrit.css
index ff9e35a354..cf39d221aa 100644
--- a/gerrit-prettify/src/main/resources/com/google/gerrit/prettify/client/gerrit.css
+++ b/gerrit-prettify/src/main/resources/com/google/gerrit/prettify/client/gerrit.css
@@ -26,13 +26,23 @@
   border-left: 1px dotted red;
 }
 
-.wse .vt {
-  border-left: 2px dotted black;
-}
-
 .wdd {
   background: #FAA;
 }
 .wdi {
   background: #9F9;
 }
+
+/* Use special rules for special styles contained within a whitespace
+ * error.  For these we want the whitespace error to take precedence
+ * so we have to override the contained style.
+ */
+.wse .vt {
+  border-left: 2px dotted black;
+}
+.wse .wdd {
+  background: red;
+}
+.wse .wdi {
+  background: red;
+}