noun
nonprinting character
Computing term for a character that does not produce a visible mark, such as a control character or whitespace.
テキストエディタで非印刷文字を表示する設定にした。
I set the text editor to show nonprinting characters.
制御文字 (control character) is a subset of nonprinting characters used for device control, while 非印刷文字 includes any character that does not produce visible output.
Compound of 非 (non-) + 印刷 (printing) + 文字 (character). A straightforward modern technical term.