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where are you, em dash?

Avatar Eric Jervis
In twenty years of typesetting I've never needed to use an em dash. Now I do and I can't find the little bounder anywhere. Two en dashes just doesn't look right, so is it possible in these advanced times?

Re: where are you, em dash?

Avatar Euan Williams
Hi Eric. Quite right, em dashes are particularly slippery customers. Try these shortcuts:

hyphen
- hyphen

n-dash
– option-hyphen (yes, in Text Edit that is an n-dash)

m-dash:
— shift-opt-hyphen

You could visit [System Preferences > Keyboard > Text] to add a shortcut of your own, or even to hammer home the "standard" ones above if possible.
I like to remember Eric Sykes and Co. in the marvellous short film "The Plank" when wrestling with dashes --- it soothes my mind!

Re: where are you, em dash?

Avatar Eric Jervis
——————————— Thanks Euan! ———. I tried watching 'The Plank' a month ago — but found it irritating — perhaps I'll try again as our top compositor recommends it so highly. — hee hee hee —

Re: where are you, em dash?

Avatar Euan Williams
That must be what went wrong, and your top compositor has the right idea: never EVER offend anything that is long, straight and thin. That's what happened to the ellipsis (known here as The Jervis Mark). Your compositor will explain, it's a Cornish thing ;)

Re: where are you, em dash?

Avatar Eric Jervis
Alas, Euan, I'm not intelligent enough to be a Cornishman; I escaped here from London thirty years ago.

Re: where are you, em dash?

Avatar Tony Still
Being a Dorset lad, my em dash lurks on the menu bar so I dun' 'ave to remember complicated shortcuts that I dun' use often.

To join me, go to System Preferences->Keyboard and tick 'Show Keyboard, Emoji, & Symbol Viewers in menu bar' (their capitalisation and punctuation, not mine). A two entry menu appears on the right-hand end of the menu bar. Choose 'Show Emoji and Symbols' to display the full character set. Search for your slippery customers by name, double-click on them to insert in your document or click 'Add to Favourites' so they're right there next time you can't remember their shortcut keys.

And full marks for not just using minus signs everywhere.

Re: where are you, em dash?

Avatar Eric Jervis
Ha ha ha ha ... thanks Tony, but you must be on El Generalissimo, while I'm still on boring old (but reliable) Mountain Lion!

Re: where are you, em dash?

Avatar Tony Still
Eric, I am using El Capitan but the feature isn't new. They must have moved the switch but it will still be in System Prefs somewhere. Try the search field perhaps?

Re: where are you, em dash?

Avatar Eric Jervis
Not that I can see Tony, although it does offer me the choice of 199 different languages. What have the poor old Welsh done to be last on the list?

Re: where are you, em dash?

Avatar Lionel Ogden
If you use Pages look in the preferences under auto correction. In addition to the pre set corrections you can also add your own.

Re: where are you, em dash?

Avatar Eric Jervis
That's very good, Lionel, I've enabled the lot 1/3 2/3 oops it doesn't work on here! Thank you.

Re: where are you, em dash?

Avatar Eric Jervis
Hallo chaps, I bet you know where those elusive diphthongs are hiding, don't you?

Re: where are you, em dash?

Avatar Mick Burrell
If you followed Tony's post of 13th Feb, look under Latin æ is there as is œ.

Re: where are you, em dash?

Avatar Eric Jervis
Hmm ... not with the big cat I'm using Mick, alas. eéé&é"'(§è!çà)-#1234567890°_Ÿ´„”’[å»ÛÁØ]–´azertyuiop^$qsdfghjklmù`<wxcvbn,;:==AZERTYUIOP¨*QSDFGHJKLM%£>WXCVBN?./+ÆÆæææææÂꮆںœœœœZELL ZELL ZELL1œaææ朜œ.they took a bit of finding, the little bleeders! its ALT+Q for the a/e one and ALT+O for the o/e one.
Oops, forgot to mention, enable the French keyboard first.

Re: where are you, em dash?

Avatar Euan Williams
Hi Eric, this may amuse you, the dashing dashes follow the quotes.

Re: where are you, em dash?

Avatar Eric Jervis
Hi Euan, it certainly did. I'd been wondering where the en dash was hiding but I didn't want to bore our readers. The typeface I'm using is Arial but the em dashes seem jolly wide and sometimes the effect is ungainly when using them to introduce speech, as the French do.
And how come I can understand the Bible perfectly when it uses no speech marks at all?
 
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