My problem is now this: If I type two hyphens & then Enter, an N-dash
appears. But if any other text is entered on that line, the dash reverts to
double hyphens. This occurs if I enter Replace - with --, or -- with -- in
autocorrect. The solution must be close. Please can you advise? TS
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Allan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2008 1:53 AM
Subject: [users] Re: N-dashes
thomas steel wrote:
Dear Jim: Thanks, but I've done exectly what you said & got nowhere. I
have 'Replace dashes' ticked & I have duly entered the "-" and "--", but
I still just get a hyphen. Any idea why?
No idea at all. This method of creating a dash has been in OpenOffice.org
as long as I’ve been using it, since 1.1 in fact and similar techniques
are part of Microsoft Word and Word Perfect. I recall them occurring in
other Word Processors also.
If you type a word, two normal hyphens, and then another word following,
the two hyphens, after about a tenth of a second the hyphens change into
an em-dash, that is from “was made--about yesterday” becomes “was
made–about yesterday”. If you leave spaces around the hyphens you get “was
made -- about yesterday” becoming was made — about yesterday” with an
en-dash instead.
The full specification of this hyphen behavior can be found in Help under
“AutoCorrect function”, subentry “options”. Note this doesn’t work when
typing hyphens between symbols such as ¦ and @. You must use letters or
digits, though this includes letters and digits outside of the ASCII
range.
Just be sure the entry is checked in at least the “M” column under
Tools -> Autocorrect... -> Options. Check that the other options also work
(or inexplicably don’t work also). I don’t know of any way of turning off
or on any of these items other than removing the check mark in this single
window. So there isn’t, so far as I know, any secret override.
You might try rebooting of course.
You can at any rate find the en-dash in most modern fonts in the “Insert
special character window”. It is the Unicode character U+2013 near the
beginning of the “General Punctuation” section, right before the em-dash
and quotation-dash along with quotation marks and other non-ASCII
punctuation.
Dashes can also be achieved on most machines through some sort of standard
method of getting special characters. On Windows, with Num-Lock on, you
press the left-Alt key and keep it pressed while typing 0150 on the
numeric keypad. The code 0151 produces the em-dash instead. This works
with almost any program. Other operating systems have other standard
methods.
Or you can a keyboard editor. Minimal and very useful keyboard editors are
available at no cost for most operating systems.
But you really shouldn’t need this when OpenOffice provides a reasonable
way of doing getting an en-dash.
Jim Allan
Replace Dashes
Replaces one or two hyphens with a long dash (see the following table).
Text will be replaced after you type a trailing white space (space, tab,
or return). In the following table, the A and B represent text consisting
of letters A to z or digits 0 to 9.
Text that you type:
Result that you get:
A - B (A, space, minus, space, B)
A – B (A, space, en-dash, space, B)
A -- B (A, space, minus, minus, space, B)
A – B (A, space, en-dash, space, B)
A--B (A, minus, minus, B)
A—B (A, em-dash, B)
(see note below the table)
A-B (A, minus, B)
A-B (unchanged)
A -B (A, space, minus, B)
A -B (unchanged)
A --B (A, space, minus, minus, B)
A –B (A, space, en-dash, B)
If the text has the Hungarian or Finnish language attribute, then two
hyphens in the sequence A--B are replaced by an en-dash instead of an
em-dash.
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