You can create a reasonable non-breaking em dash using standard non-breaking
dashes (CTRL+SHIFT+-). Type four or five non-breaking dashes. Select them
and then use the Font Dialog>Characters Spacing to condense and raise the
charaters until it looks the same size as an em dash. You might need to
adjust the font size to lighten the line weight. Select this contraption
and create an autotext entry. When you need it, type the autotext entry
name and press F3.
You can replace all of your traditional em dashes with the non-breaking
imposters by entering one of the imposters into your document, selecting it,
and then copy it to the clipboard. Using repalce CTRL+h, type in ^+ in the
find field (finds em dashes) and ^c in the replace with field. Then click
replace all.
In dialogue the speaker is interrupted and so I end the sentence with
an em dash followed by smart quotes (correct according to Chicago
Manual of Style). I have this situation throughout my novel, but in
one or two cases when the em dash just happens to be at the very end
of the line, it breaks the line and orphans the quotes by themselves
on the next line. This would appear to be a bug in Word 2003.
Anyone have a solution, other than re-writing the dialogue?
--
Greg Maxey
See my web site
http://gregmaxey.mvps.org
for an eclectic collection of Word Tips.
"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the
strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them
better. The credit belongs to the man in the arena, whose face is
marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly...who knows
the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a
worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high
achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while
daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and
timid souls who have never known neither victory nor defeat." - TR
