em-dashes

Everything related to our flagship word processor.
Post Reply
Derick
Posts: 107
Joined: 2007-05-21 08:33:59

em-dashes

Post by Derick »

Am I missing something or does NWP not automatically convert two dashes ( -- ) to an em-dash?
User avatar
mrennie
Posts: 173
Joined: 2004-11-10 07:31:31

Post by mrennie »

No, it doesn't do that, but you can make it, through QuickFix. Click on Nisus Writer Pro>Preferences, then click on the QuickFix button. Click on the "+" button above the typo list, then type "--" in the left column (without the quotation marks), and in the right column, type an em-dash. NWP will now automatically replace two consecutive "-"s with an em-dash.

Note that this only works if there is a space before and after the two "-". If I remember correctly, the American English writing convention doesn't allow spaces before and after em-dashes, so it won't work in that case. Note that you can also manually insert dashes: Option+"-" for an en-dash, Shift+Option+"-" for an em-dash. That's the way it works with my Swiss French keyboard layout; there might be different combinations for other keyboard layouts.
User avatar
greenmorpher
Posts: 767
Joined: 2007-04-12 04:01:46
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Contact:

Post by greenmorpher »

mrennie wrote:No, it doesn't do that, but you can make it, through QuickFix. Click on Nisus Writer Pro>Preferences, then click on the QuickFix button. Click on the "+" button above the typo list, then type "--" in the left column (without the quotation marks), and in the right column, type an em-dash. NWP will now automatically replace two consecutive "-"s with an em-dash.

Note that this only works if there is a space before and after the two "-". If I remember correctly, the American English writing convention doesn't allow spaces before and after em-dashes, so it won't work in that case.
The space before and after is optional. Some authorities, particularly American, like to go no spaces, but others prefer spaces (and rightly so, in my opinion). Anyone who prefers no spaces, though, can do a space-dash-dash-space, i.e. " -- " in the left column and replace with " — " (space-em-dash-space) if they want spaces or not add spaces in the right column.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard, Business Writer & Publisher

"Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes" -- Revealed! The secrets of how you can use type and layout to turbocharge your messages in print. See the book at http://www.worsleypress.com
Publius
Posts: 10
Joined: 2007-07-05 06:16:08

It can be done easily

Post by Publius »

In MSWord, an em-dash can be made by typing two dashes in succession.

In Nisus, type two dashes while holding down the option key. Voila.
dshan
Posts: 334
Joined: 2003-11-21 19:25:28
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: It can be done easily

Post by dshan »

Publius wrote:In MSWord, an em-dash can be made by typing two dashes in succession.

In Nisus, type two dashes while holding down the option key. Voila.
No, that doesn't work. It's option-shift-_ that gives you an em-dash in any Mac application. Option and a single dash gives you an en-dash.
Publius
Posts: 10
Joined: 2007-07-05 06:16:08

Post by Publius »

Wrongo dshan

option-dash is an en-dash
option-dashdash is an em dash the same as option-shift-dash
User avatar
Elbrecht
Posts: 354
Joined: 2007-03-31 14:59:22
Location: Frankfurt, Germany

Post by Elbrecht »

Well -

both are right somehow - but "option dash dash" is trickie:
because two en-dashes still don't make one em-dash really,
as Stats palette counts TWO for "option dash dash" em-dash.

The point is that en-dash has the width of 500 - two en-dashes
make 1000 - that's the width of em-Dash, but still two dashes...

HE
MacBook Pro i5
SSD 840/850 Pro
High Sierra 10.13.6
Nisus Writer Pro 3.4
Groucho
Posts: 497
Joined: 2007-03-03 09:55:06
Location: Europe

Post by Groucho »

Besides, if you loosen kerning two contiguous en-dashes will spread apart and show the trick, i.e. the gap in between.
Groucho
dshan
Posts: 334
Joined: 2003-11-21 19:25:28
Location: Sydney, Australia

Post by dshan »

Groucho wrote:Besides, if you loosen kerning two contiguous en-dashes will spread apart and show the trick, i.e. the gap in between.
Indeed, Verdana for example shows it very clearly, and the tooldrawer character count confirms opt dash dash as 2 characters vs 1 for opt shift dash. Then there's Apple's Keyboard Viewer of course...

I'm sorry Publius, there's no getting around it, opt dash dash gives you two en-dashes (U2013, which in some fonts can look the same as a single em-dash, but isn't). To enter an actual em-dash character (U2014) in Nisus (or any Mac app for that matter) you use opt shift dash.
maccam
Posts: 2
Joined: 2007-08-19 01:54:17
Location: UK

em dashes with Spell Checker

Post by maccam »

Spell Catcher, a great utility, will insert an em dash for two hyphens in NWP.
Post Reply