m-dash and AutoCorrect

Topic

New Reply

Someone on one of the Microsoft Newsgroups asked how to get AutoCorrect to make an M-dash (dash the width of a capital M). I typed up an answer saying that it already did. But then I checked and was wrong. Turns out that it gives an n-dash to replace one hyphen or two. So, here’s what I ended up posting. Thought I would share this tidbit and show off my ignorance a little more (in case there were any doubts).

I thought it did this by default! Tried [space]–[space]text[space] and I
was wrong – it’s an n-dash, the same as [space]-[space]text[space].

Anyway,
to fix this, use Insert => Symbol… => Special Characters (tab) to insert
an M-dash. Then select that M-dash and use Tools => AutoCorrect to get to
the AutoCorrect dialog. Type in your two dashes as the text to be replaced
and you should be all set.

Hope this is of help to somebody else.

Reply | Quote

Replies

If you use Alt-Ctrl together with the minus sign on the numeric keypad you get an M-dash in Word.

Andrew C

Reply | Quote

Yes, & Ctrl+numpad minus = N dash.

Reply | Quote

Press Ctrl-Shift +numpad minus 3 times in succession and you get what appears to a line of some sort. Would that be the sort of object that makes up the footnote seperator ?.
It’s a very convenient way of getting an underline across the page.

Andrew

Reply | Quote

It is not, because I cannot position the cursor anywhere in between. It is a single object of some kind, and I would love to know what kind.

Reply | Quote

Hi Rajesh:

It’s a paragraph border. And you only get it if you have Tools/AutoCorrect…/AutoFormat as you type/apply as you type/borders ticked.

Reply | Quote

Hi BAM:

>An em dash is created automatically when you type: text two hyphens text. There are no spaces on either side of the hyphens.<

Provided you have Tools/AutoCorrect/AutoFormat as you type/Replace as you type/symbol characters with symbols. And then if you have TextSpaceHypenHypenText, you get an en dash.

Reply | Quote

AutoFormat makes
“text/space/hyphen/hyphen/space/text” into
“text/space/en dash/space/text”,
and it makes
“text/hyphen/hyphentext” into
“text/em dash/text”

In Word I usually use Ctrl/Num- for an en dash and Alt/Ctrl/Num- for an em dash; elsewhere Alt/0150 and Alt/0151 provide these characters in many common fonts.

Reply | Quote

And AutoFormat As You Type makes:
text [space] hyphen [space] text into text [space] en-dash [space] text.

I’ll have to remember to look in the Insert => Symbols… => Special Characters (tab) list more often (since I have mine set to show Keyboard shortcuts). Thank you for reminding us of the built-in shortcuts.

Reply | Quote