diff --git a/src/lib/Hydra/Controller/Jobset.pm b/src/lib/Hydra/Controller/Jobset.pm
index d126efff..0c53a1cf 100644
--- a/src/lib/Hydra/Controller/Jobset.pm
+++ b/src/lib/Hydra/Controller/Jobset.pm
@@ -183,7 +183,7 @@ sub nixExprPathFromParams {
 
 sub checkInputValue {
     my ($c, $name, $type, $value) = @_;
-    $value = trim $value;
+    $value = trim $value unless $type eq "string";
 
     error($c, "The value ‘$value’ of input ‘$name’ is not a Boolean (‘true’ or ‘false’).") if
         $type eq "boolean" && !($value eq "true" || $value eq "false");
diff --git a/src/root/jobset.tt b/src/root/jobset.tt
index 063cfd15..e07cbb6e 100644
--- a/src/root/jobset.tt
+++ b/src/root/jobset.tt
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@
       [% FOREACH alt IN input.search_related('jobsetinputalts', {}, { order_by => 'altnr' }) %]
         <tt class="inputalt">
           [% IF input.type == "string" %]
-            "[% HTML.escape(alt.value) %]"
+            "<span class="keep-whitespace">[% HTML.escape(alt.value) %]</span>"
           [% ELSE %]
             [% HTML.escape(alt.value) %]
           [% END %]
diff --git a/src/root/static/css/hydra.css b/src/root/static/css/hydra.css
index 59ef91c1..8e3e5a97 100644
--- a/src/root/static/css/hydra.css
+++ b/src/root/static/css/hydra.css
@@ -111,3 +111,7 @@ td.nowrap {
 .star:hover {
     cursor: pointer;
 }
+
+span.keep-whitespace {
+    white-space: pre-wrap;
+}
\ No newline at end of file