Autoformat - dashes

[AA]

I have both settings checked to turn two hyphens into en or em dashes,
under "autoformat" and "autoformat as you type", but my hyphens don't
change. Am I missing a setting?

 

[Charles Kenyon]

You have to type a word and then space after the word.

my -- report (space) and the two hyphens change to a dash.

This is true of both Autoformat as you type and Autoformat, although on my
system Autoformat results in a much longer dash.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

If you put spaces before and after the two hyphens, AutoFormat As You Type
will convert them to an en dash (same as a single hyphen between spaces);
AutoFormat converts them to an em dash (and eliminates the spaces before and
after). If you leave out the spaces when you type, AutoFormat As You Type
will also convert them to an em dash.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[AA]

You have to type a word and then space after the word.

my -- report (space) and the two hyphens change to a dash.

This is true of both Autoformat as you type and Autoformat, although on my
system Autoformat results in a much longer dash.

Arggh! So all I needed to do was to keep typing, the hyphens don’t change
until after you type the space after the following word. It had worked a
few times in the past – I’d look up from the keyboard and the en dash would
be there. But I never saw it change – I figured the computer knew when I
was looking and just to spite me it refused to change while I was watching.
I tried to outsmart it by tilting my head back and barely opening one eye –
it works on my cat and my 18 month-old nephews, but the computer was too
clever. I thought about typing behind my back and propping a mirror up on
the bookshelf, but it seemed easier to ask here first.

Very neat—life’s little pleasures. Thanks – Charles and Suzanne.

—Andy—

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

<g>

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Charles Kenyon]

You are welcome. Took me a while to figure out, as well. And I didn't have
the fine grasp of the situation that Suzanne has acquired.
--

Charles Kenyon

See the MVP FAQ: <URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/> which is awesome!
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[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Since I don't use that particular feature (I have keyboard shortcuts for em
and en dashes dating back to before the AutoFormat features existed), I've
had to learn about it by trial and error, and a lot of what I know is
theoretical. One of my clients was having trouble with this. I'd showed him
how--magically--Word would transform his double hyphens into em dashes. He
was suitably impressed. And then it didn't work. I suspect he may have been
going back and doing some retroactively. In any case, I myself hadn't
realized that the transformation didn't occur till you'd finished the
following word, and I was trying to troubleshoot this over the phone, and I
was quite baffled. When I later tried it myself and figured out the trick, I
guess I called and let him in on the "secret"!

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Larry]

I don't use that AutoFormat As You Type feature as I have my own macro
for typing an em dash. But in my Word 97, the AFAYT feature doesn't
work as advertised. It says it converts two hyphens into an en dash,
and three hyphens into an em dash. But when I try it, it converts two
hyphens into an em dash, and it doesn't convert three hyphens in
anything as far as I can tell.

Anyway, it seems a silly feature to me. The em dash is a basic
character that writers use constantly. Why should a user have to wait
until after the following word is typed before the character becomes
what it's supposed to be? We don't do that with a question mark or any
other punctuation. Why with the em dash? And Word's default keystroke
for the em dash, which requires reaching way over to the right side of
the NumPad, is not practical.

I have a macro that, if I'm typing in any font other than Courier or
Courier New text, types an em dash, and, if I'm typing in Courier or
Courier New text, types non-breaking double hyphens (since Courier
cannot handle em dashes). Also, if I change the document from, say
Courier to Times New Roman, the double hyphens change automatically to
em dashes, and vice versa.