Last week I discussed the evils of directly applied formatting but didn't explain how to get rid of it. I know what you're going to say: "Just press CTRL + A to select all and then press CTRL + SPACE." That will remove it, all right. The problem is, it will also remove italics, bold, and other formatting that you want to *keep.*

For example, let's say you're editing a scholarly tome with acres and acres of footnotes. Nearly every one of those notes is going to cite a book or journal of some kind--with the title of each publication in italics (represented here with asterisks), like this:

39. G. B. Harrison, *The Profession of English* (New York: Anchor Books, 1967), p. 166.

But if you do the CTRL + SPACE thing, you're going to get this:

39. G. B. Harrison, The Profession of English (New York: Anchor Books, 1967), p. 166.

So what are you going to do? Go back and italicize everything by hand?

There *is* a better way. In general terms, here's the procedure:

1. Identify each kind of directly applied formatting you want to keep--italics, strikethrough, whatever. Maybe make a list.

2. Find and replace each kind of formatting with a unique code. For example, you might use |I| to indicate italic and |B| to indicate bold. (More on this in a minute.)

3. Press CTRL + A to select all and CTRL + SPACE to remove all directly applied formatting.

4. Find and replace your codes with the appropriate formatting.

Now let's get specific and say you're trying to preserve italics. Here's what you'd do:

1. Click Edit > Replace to open Word's Find and Replace dialog.

2. Leave the "Find What" box empty but press CTRL + I to specify italic formatting. The box will now say "Font: Italic" underneath.

3. In the "Replace With" box, enter this:

|I|^&|I|

That code in the middle, ^&, is the "Find What Text" wildcard, which tells Word to use whatever it *finds* (in this case, any italicized text) as the *replacement* between your italic codes. You can learn more about the "Find What Text" wildcard here:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1703525514

4. Click the "Replace All" button. All of your italicized text will now be marked with codes, like this:

39. G. B. Harrison, |I|The Profession of English|I| (New York: Anchor Books, 1967), p. 166.

(If you wanted to preserve other kinds of formatting, such as bold, you'd repeat steps 1 through 4 here, with different codes for each kind of formatting.)

5. Press CTRL + A to select all and CTRL + SPACE to remove directly applied formatting. Woo-hoo! Pretty scary, no? (You did keep a backup, right?)

6. Click Edit > Replace to open Word's Find and Replace dialog.

7. In the "Find What" box, enter the formatting codes and the * wildcard (in parentheses) to represent any text between the codes, like this:

|I|(*)|I|

8. Click the "No Formatting" button. The "Font: Italic" notation will go away.

9. In the "Replace With" box, enter this:

1

That code tells Word to use any text it *finds* between italic codes as the *replacement* for the codes and the text between them. Clear as mud? You'll understand when you try it. You can learn more about the "Find What Expression" wildcard here:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1706365638

10. With your cursor still in the "Replace With" box, press CTRL + I to specify italic formatting. The box will now say "Font: Italic" underneath.

11. Put a checkmark in the "Use wildcards" (or "Use pattern matching") box. You may need to click the "More" button before this is available.

12. Click the "Replace All" button. All of your italicized text will be restored to its former glory--and all of the directly applied formatting that you *didn't* want (such as 12-point Baskerville) will be gone!

If you need to do this kind of thing a lot, you can record the procedure in a macro that you can use over and over again. You can learn more about recording macros here:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1706651129

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1706748016

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1706832239

Or, if you'd like a macro that will clean up directly applied formatting (but preserve character formatting such as italic) in a whole folder full of documents at the same time, you might try our FileCleaner program, which you can learn more about here:

http://www.editorium.com/14845.htm

_________________________________________

READERS WRITE

Last week Rich Shattenberg asked if it's possible to use wildcards in a custom spell-check dictionary. You can read his question here:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1709799142

This week, expert Word-whacker Steve Hudson sent the definitive reply:

"No wildcards in dic entries. Badda badda boom."

Many thanks to Steve. It wasn't really the answer we wanted, but it's always good to know the facts.

_________________________________________

RESOURCES

The Office Letter

The Office Letter is a weekly email newsletter that provides a plethora of tips, tricks, tools, and techniques for using Microsoft Office. It's a *nice* publication, as you can see here:

http://www.officeletter.com/current.html

And hey, the current edition includes our NameSwapper macro!

The standard edition of The Office Letter is free. The premium edition includes access to all back issues, a fast search engine, and no advertising, all for just $12 a year. You can sign up for either edition here:

http://www.officeletter.com/sub/subscribe.html

Why not check it out?

If you use Microsoft Word, I guarantee you've been frustrated by its formatting, especially if you edit someone else's documents. For example, you modify the Heading 1 style to use Palatino rather than Arial--but Arial it remains. What's going on here?

Consider my living room wall, which I daringly painted red. Then, coming to my senses, I painted it grayish green. But wait . . . What *was* I thinking? Finally, I covered it with an almond color that looked okay.

Microsoft Word's formatting works pretty much the same way. It's done in layers, like paint on a wall.

The underlying layer is the formatting of paragraph styles. For example, if you apply the Heading 1 paragraph style using Word's defaults, your text will be formatted in 16-point Arial bold. If you attach a new template to your document (and check the box labeled "Automatically Update Document Styles"), the formatting of Heading 1 will change to whatever is specified in the new template (18-point Baskerville italic, for example). Note that this doesn't change the style formatting in your Normal template. It just paints over that formatting *in your document.* And if you "detach" the new template, the formatting won't change back. Once the paint is on there, it's on there. Of course, you can always attach a *different* template or modify the styles in the document itself if you want to change the formatting yet again.

The next layer up is the formatting of character styles. You can use character styles to format text selections smaller than a paragraph. For example, you might use a character style called Book Title to format book titles in Times Roman italic. Like paragraph styles, character styles can be changed by attaching a different template or modifying the styles in the document itself.

Finally, on the topmost layer, your document could have directly applied formatting. That's what you get if you simply select some text and apply, say, 18-point Baskerville italic without using a style. In all but the simplest documents, this kind of formatting is of the devil. Why? Because you can't change it simply by modifying the underlying style--and that means you have no way to control it (or even identify it) *throughout* the document. So, if you modify the Heading 1 style to use Palatino rather than Arial--well, Arial it remains.

How can you avoid this problem in your documents?

1. Don't use directly applied formatting.

2. Use character styles to format text selections smaller than a paragraph.

3. Use paragraph styles to format everything else.

4. To change your formatting, modify the *style* that produces it.

But what if you're working on someone else's documents? You'll probably want to remove all that directly applied formatting and use styles instead. But that's a topic for another day.

_________________________________________

READERS WRITE

Rich Shattenberg (shatts@world.cbi.org) wrote:

"I don't have a hint but I have a question and a problem. I live in the country of Madagascar. There is no Word spell checker for the Malagasy language, or at least I have not yet been able to find one. I have made a custom dictionary with about 7,000 words to do spell checks in Malagasy. However, here is the challenge.

"The word 'mandeha' means 'to go' (present tense), 'Nandeha' is past tense, and 'handeha' is future tense. For the custom dictionary, I have to enter all three words. I have not yet been able to find wildcard symbols to use in the custom dictionary.

"For example, is there a way of telling the custom dictionary to accept the word 'andeha' if there is either a 'm' or 'n' or 'h' in front of the word. This would mean I only have to make one entry for the three words."

I'm researching this, but do you, gentle reader, have an answer (or other questions, hints, or comments you'd like to share)? If so, please send me an email message here: mailto:hints [at symbol] editorium.com

_________________________________________

RESOURCES

If you're not familiar with the Tech-whirl Web site (TECHWR-L), you should be. It presents some of the finest information on technical writing and editing on the planet. You may also be interested in subscribing to the TECHWR-L discussion list, which is one *active* list. Why not check it out?

http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/index.php3

Do you ever work with lists of personal names--authors, meeting lists, and so on? If so, you could probably use NameSwapper, our new add-in program that swaps last names and first names (or vice versa, if that makes sense) in a list of names. For example, if you've got a list of names like this--

Cather, Willa

Harrison, G. B., Ph.D.

Lewis, C. S.

Tolkien, J.R.R.

--but you want them to look like this--

Willa Cather

G. B. Harrison, Ph.D.

C. S. Lewis

J.R.R. Tolkien

--NameSwapper will do the job.

I'm giving this program away! Subscribers to Editorium Update will be the first to have it, but please feel free to share it with friends and colleagues who might find it useful.

To download NameSwapper for Word 97, 98, 2000, 2001, or 2002, click here:

http://www.editorium.com/ftp/nameswapper8.zip

To download NameSwapper for Word 6 or 7 (95), click here:

http://www.editorium.com/ftp/nameswapper6.zip

The program will work on PC and Macintosh.

Once you've downloaded and unzipped (or unstuffed) the proper version of the program, you'll see the documentation, which is named NameSwapper.doc. (Open it in Word to read it.) You'll also see the NameSwapper program template, which is named NameSwapper.dot. (If you need software to unzip or unstuff the program, you can download it from http://www.winzip.com or http://www.aladdinsys.com.)

To use the template (NameSwapper.dot), follow this procedure:

1. Open it in Microsoft Word by clicking File > Open. Don't just double-click the template to open it. If you do, you'll run into problems later.

2. Double-click the large button that says "Double-Click here to install."

3. Follow the prompts on your screen.

If you have trouble with the installation, just copy the program template to Word's Templates or Startup folder. You can learn more about this here:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1707012536

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1707100224

After the program is installed, you'll see the NameSwapper menu at the top of your Microsoft Word window. To use the program, open your list of names in Microsoft Word. The list should look something like this (if last names are first):

Cather, Willa

Harrison, G. B., Ph.D.

Lewis, C. S.

Tolkien, J.R.R.

Or, it can look like this (if first names are first):

Willa Cather

G. B. Harrison, Ph.D.

C. S. Lewis

J.R.R. Tolkien

Each name, including the last one, should be followed by a carriage return.

To swap the names in your list, click the NameSwapper menu. Then click "Put First Names First" or "Put Last Names First," depending on your list. After NameSwapper is finished, you can use Word's Sort feature (Table > Sort) to sort your names alphabetically.

NameSwapper knows how to deal with the following name "suffixes": Jr., Jr, JR, Sr., Sr, SR, I, I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, Esq., Esq, Esquire, Ph.D., Ph.D, PhD., PhD, M.D., MD., MD, D.D.S., DDS., DDS., J.D., JD., JD, Ed.D., Ed.D, EdD., and EdD.

Be sure to use NameSwapper only on lists of names--with no other text in the document. *Please* don't use it on, say, your master's thesis. Also, be sure to keep backup copies of your lists in case you need something to go back to.

_________________________________________

READERS WRITE

My longtime friend Richard O'Regan (raor@bluewin.ch) wrote:

I have another of my long legal books to do. In this one the author, preparing his work in Word for Windows, has been inconsistent about how he punctuates at the footnote reference numbers. Sometimes he puts his comma or the period after the footnote reference number and sometimes he puts it before.

I want the comma or period to precede the reference number. I can't do it with search and replace because you can't put the footnote reference (^f) in the replace box.

I replied:

You can do it with a not-so-simple find-and-replace.

In the Find What box, put this:

(^02)([.!?])

The ^02 will find the note reference numbers. The characters in square brackets will find the closing punctuation you want to transpose. If you like, you can add other punctuation, such as commas, colons, and semicolons:

(^02)([.!?,:;])

The backslash on the ! and ? are necessary to tell Word that you're using them as characters and not as wildcards. The parentheses group the items so that you can switch them around in the Replace With box, which should have this in it:

21

That tells Word to put the second group (the punctuation) first, and the first group (the footnote number) last. Doesn't the Bible say something about that. 🙂

Finally, you'll need to put a checkmark in the box labeled "Use Wildcards" (you may need to click the "More" button before it's available).

If you'd like to know about searching with wildcards, see Editorium Update for March 25 through April 25, 2001:

http://editorium.com/EUIndex.htm

If you'd like to know more about searching with numeric codes (such as ^02), see the November 21, 2000 issue of Editorium Update:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1704081834

_________________________________________

RESOURCES

This week, another Microsoft resource: Microsoft Office newsgroups. The Web site says you can "ask questions, share information, or exchange ideas with others who use Office products, including more than 750 Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) worldwide." To use the newsgroups, go here:

http://communities.microsoft.com/newsgroups/default.asp?icp=Prod_Office

Then select a newsgroup from the list on the left.

Last week I introduced a program that creates typographic spaces by changing a space's point size relative to the surrounding text. But why is that a good idea? If you save a document with such spaces in almost any other kind of format--HTML, XML, or even ASCII--those spaces are going to cause problems. For example, that hair space you so carefully placed in front of those closing quotation marks will turn into a full-fledged *space*--with no "thin" about it. That can't be good.

So what's the point of using special characters and formatting? To enhance the *presentation* of a document's content. Presentation is what the document looks like. It includes such things as typeface, point size, kerning, tracking, and all of the other paraphernalia of the typesetter's art.

*Content,* on the other hand, is a document's text--and its structure: words, sentences, paragraphs, block quotations, subheadings, and chapter headings--the kind of thing you should designate with paragraph styles. In fact, the whole point of a paragraph style is what it represents--not what it looks like. The fact that your chapter heading style is named "Chapter Head" is what's important. The fact that it's currently formatted as Baskerville 16-point bold is immaterial as far as content goes.

In today's publishing environment the distinction between content and presentation is especially important, because your Word document may end up as a Web page, a Help file, an electronic book, or some other kind of presentation document that hasn't been invented yet--each with different formatting than the others. For that reason, you need to keep your Word documents free from such tinkering as artificially created thin spaces.

But there is an exception. If your Word file itself will be the presentation document (to be printed or displayed in Word), then you can go ahead and put in those thin spaces, optional hyphens, and so on--whatever will make the document look good. Be aware, however, that this *is* a presentation document--a final product. So be sure to keep a backup of your *content* document safely in a separate file. Then, when it's time to create that Web page, you won't have to spend hours cleaning up the manual tweaking you did in your presentation document. Just open the content document and off you go.

Editors need to be concerned with both content and presentation. As a book editor, I look almost exclusively at content when editing a manuscript. I usually don't even know what typeface the designer will use. But after the book has been typeset, I look almost exclusively at presentation--widows, orphans, line breaks, and so on. The difference is that the manuscript is a content document. The galleys are a presentation document. And that distinction should be kept firmly in mind.

I do not know which to prefer,

The beauty of inflections

Or the beauty of innuendoes,

The blackbird whistling

Or just after.

--Wallace Stevens

_________________________________________

READERS WRITE

Martha Bowes wrote, "Is there a workaround to get Word to show custom heading styles in the document map?"

Microsoft Word's Document Map is a highly useful feature, especially for editors. To display it, click View > Document Map. Text formatted with Word's built-in Heading styles will be displayed in the map, and you can click one of them to go to that heading in your document.

Martha wants to know if there's a way to display text formatted with custom styles in the Document Map. And there is:

1. Put your cursor on some text formatted with the custom style.

2. Click the Format menu.

3. Click Style.

4. Click Modify.

5. Click Format.

6. Click Paragraph.

7. Click the Indents and Spacing tab.

8. In the Outline level box, select the level you want the heading to have. (This is the key to making this work.)

9. Click OK.

10. Click OK.

11. Click Close.

_________________________________________

RESOURCES

The Computer Tutor of San Francisco offers an excellent online tutorial on using styles in Microsoft Word:

http://www.geocities.com/w2css/styles/

You can read the complete text of Wallace Stevens's "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" here:

http://boppin.com/poets/stevens.htm

Two weeks ago, I explained how to "roll your own" typographical spaces (thin spaces, hair spaces, and so on) in Microsoft Word. Last week I explained how to use typographical spaces with Unicode. But if you don't want to make typographical spaces by hand and your version of Word doesn't support Unicode, you might want to try SpaceCadet, our new add-in program that makes it easy to use typographical spaces in Microsoft Word. I'm giving it away! Subscribers to Editorium Update will be the first to have it, but please feel free to share it with friends and colleagues who might find it useful.

To download SpaceCadet for Word 97, 98, 2000, 2001, or 2002, click here:

http://www.editorium.com/ftp/SpaceCadet8.zip

To download SpaceCadet for Word 6 or 7 (95), click here:

http://www.editorium.com/ftp/SpaceCadet6.zip

The program will work on PC and Macintosh.

Once you've downloaded and unzipped (or unstuffed) the proper version of the program, you'll see the documentation, which is named SpaceCadet.doc. (Open it in Word to read it.) You'll also see the SpaceCadet program template, which is named SpaceCadet.dot. (If you need software to unzip or unstuff the program, you can download it from http://www.winzip.com or http://www.aladdinsys.com.) To use the template (SpaceCadet.dot), follow this procedure:

1. Open it in Microsoft Word by clicking File > Open. Don't just double-click the template to open it. If you do, you'll run into problems later.

2. Double-click the large button that says "Double-Click here to Install."

3. Follow the prompts on your screen.

After the program is installed, display the SpaceCadet toolbar by clicking View > Toolbars > SpaceCadet. Then click a toolbar button to insert the kind of space you need. Or, press CTRL + SPACEBAR and then the character that is underlined on one of the buttons. For example, pressing 3 would create a 3-to-em space. M means em space, N means en space, T means thin space, and H means hair space. For more information, see the program documentation or the January 24, 2002, issue of Editorium Update:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1709472543

Please note, however, that if you *can* use Unicode, that's the better way to go. You can learn more about Unicode here:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1709529895

____________________________________________________

_________________________________________

READERS WRITE

Leonard Will (L.Will@Willpowerinfo.co.uk) wrote:

"It might just be worth while adding the warning that you should not insert any additional spaces of any kind into character strings that might be used as URLs to access Internet resources. People may use these as active links or cut and paste them into an address bar. If the spaces are very small or invisible this might lead to irritating errors that are hard to track down.

"I presume, though, that your main concern is the appearance of text printed on paper, when additional spacing may make it look better, as long as people don't realise that there is a space there!"

Right! Thanks to Leonard for this important tip.

_________________________________________

RESOURCES

If you haven't yet seen Jean Hollis Weber's book on electronic editing, you owe it to yourself to take a look:

http://www.jeanweber.com/books/e-edit.htm

This 248-page book is titled Electronic Editing, with a subtitle of Editing in the Computer Age. Published by WeberWoman's Wrevenge, the book (ISBN 0-646-38037-0) is available for Adobe Acrobat Reader (PDF). The author describes it as "a quick start guide for editing students, experienced editors making the switch from paper to online, and anyone who needs to write or edit electronically."

A broad but detailed overview of electronic editing, this beautifully formatted book makes a nice complement to our book Total Word Domination (which gives a more in-depth look at various Word features--usually different from those in Electronic Editing). I'd recommend that you get them both. Jean Weber's book explains how to:

* Define your role as an electronic editor

* Work online

* Work remotely

* Edit using Microsoft Word, Lotus Word Pro, FrameMaker, and Adobe Acrobat

* Manage e-mail when traveling

* Back up data and programs

You can see a complete (and very tempting) contents listing here:

http://www.jeanweber.com/books/edbktoc.htm

If you like the book, be sure to pay Jean for her efforts. The Web site explains the procedure:

http://www.jeanweber.com/books/payme.htm

In the beginning was ASCII, and ASCII was limited--128 characters wasn't enough. So Microsoft extended it to 256--still not enough. True, you could now access "foreign-language" and other special characters by using "code pages" with different fonts in Microsoft Word. If you've clicked Insert > Symbol and then changed the font on the drop-down list in the Symbol dialog, you've seen how this works: the same character "position" (or number) often displays a different character in different fonts.

But what if you want to use special characters--*any* special characters--in the *same* font as your regular text? That's what Unicode is all about. As the Unicode Web site explains, "Unicode provides a unique number for every character, no matter what the platform, no matter what the program, no matter what the language." How many characters? Potentially more than a million. So whether you're working with Greek or Gothic, Klingon or Korean, Unicode is for you.

Unicode also includes special typographical characters, such as hair spaces, thin spaces, and zero-width spaces, which we made by hand in last week's newsletter. But now you don't have to make them; using Unicode, you can get the real thing.

Of course, there is a catch. Using Unicode requires three things:

1. An operating system that supports it.

2. A program (application) that supports it.

3. A Unicode font that includes the characters you need (not all of them will, although in theory they should).

There's a list of such items here:

http://www.unicode.org/unicode/onlinedat/products.html

But I'll make it easy for you:

1. Common operating systems include Microsoft Windows 2000, NT, and XP, and Macintosh OS 9.2, X, 10.1, and X Server.

2. Versions of Microsoft Word include 97, 2000, and 2002 for Windows, and 98, 2001, and X for Macintosh. However, the Mac versions (and operating systems) may require a "Language Kit," which you can learn more about here:

http://www.hclrss.demon.co.uk/unicode/utilities_fonts.html#apple

3. Unicode fonts are rapidly becoming available. There's a great list here, and many of the fonts are free:

http://www.hclrss.demon.co.uk/unicode/fonts.html#general

Once you've installed a Unicode font, you can insert its special characters with the good old Insert > Symbol menu (be sure to select the Unicode font in the dropdown Font list).

You can also insert a character with the keyboard (in Word 2000 and higher) if you know its Unicode number. To do so, be sure a Unicode font is selected (Format > Font); then type the number into your document and press ALT + X. For example, let's say we need a zero-width space in Word 2000. The Unicode number for such a space is 200B. So all we have to do is type 200B into our document and press ALT + X. Presto!

You can learn more about using Unicode characters in Word here:

http://www.hclrss.demon.co.uk/unicode/utilities_editors.html#word97

For additional information on Word 2000 and 2002, scroll down past the Word 97 information (which is also relevant for the later versions).

If you need to look up the number of a Unicode character, you can do so here:

http://www.hclrss.demon.co.uk/unicode/search.html

If you just want to insert typographic spaces, here are the Unicode numbers you need:

Nonbreaking space: 00A0

En space: 2002

Em space: 2003

Three-per-em space: 2004

Four-per-em space: 2005

Six-per-em space: 2006

Figure space: 2007

Punctuation space: 2008

Thin space: 2009

Hair space: 200A

Zero-width space: 200B

And you'll find additional information on spaces here:

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/developers/fdsspec/spaces.htm

With Unicode, the world (or at least its scripts) is your oyster.

_________________________________________

RESOURCES

For a dazzling array of Unicode information, see Alan Wood's Unicode Resources site:

http://www.hclrss.demon.co.uk/unicode/index.html

Check out the official Unicode site here:

The official site: http://www.unicode.org

For online samples of interesting characters, see this page:

http://home.att.net/~jameskass/scriptlinks.htm

For a free Word add-in program to help you insert Unicode characters, go here:

http://hem.fyristorg.com/dahloe/uniqoder/

For information on artificial scripts, go here:

http://www.evertype.com/standards/csur/index.html

If you're a Tolkien fan, you might be interested in the Tengwar encoding proposal:

http://www.evertype.com/standards/csur/tengwar.html and in Tolkien fonts (but not necessarily Unicode):

http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/4948/

http://babel.uoregon.edu/yamada/fonts/tolkien.html

and in the Resources for Tolkien Linguistics site:

http://www.elvish.org/resources.html

And if you're actually interested in Klingon, here's the scoop:

http://www.evertype.com/standards/csur/klingon.html

Microsoft Word comes with four kinds of spaces:

* word spaces

* nonbreaking spaces

* em spaces

* en spaces

The word space is just the ordinary space used between words--the kind you insert with the spacebar. Its main strength is its variable size, which is especially important with justified type. Microsoft Word ordinarily expands word spaces to make justification work, but you can also get it to compress them. For more information, see the October 31, 2001, issue of Editorium Update:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1708754845

The nonbreaking space, unlike the word space, won't break at the end of a line. It's often used to link proper names (so that "J.R.R." stays on the same line as "Tolkien"), as well as percentages ("98 percent"), page numbers ("page 3"), and, as explained in last week's newsletter, ellipses:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1709407200

Keep in mind, however, that the nonbreaking space is unlike the word space in another way: its size is fixed (relative to the current point size). In certain typefaces, with justified type, that fixed size may make ellipses look unevenly spaced, so be careful. To enter a nonbreaking space, click Insert > Symbol > Special Characters > Nonbreaking Space. Or just press SHIFT + CTRL + SPACE. For more ways to use nonbreaking spaces, see the Readers Write column of the October 3, 2001, Editorium Update:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1708466498

The em space is as wide as an em, which is a linear measure equal to the point size. For example, in 12-point type, an em is 12 points wide. In traditional typesetting, an em space was used as fixed-width indentation at the beginning of a paragraph. Nowadays we usually specify first line indent as part of paragraph formatting. But if you insist on using an em space, you can get one by clicking Insert > Symbol > Special Characters > Em Space.

The en space is half as wide as an em space. For example, in 12-point type, an en space is 6 points wide. It's basically the same thing as a figure space, and it's used in aligning lists of figures, or numbers. For example, in a list like this--

8. Lorem ipsum.

9. Dolor sit amet.

10. Consectetuer adipiscing elit.

--the periods and terminal figures all line up because the space in front of 8 and 9 is the same width (one en) as the 1 in the number 10. That's right; in professional typefaces, all of the "lining figures" (numbers used in lists) are also one en wide. (Those old typesetters knew what they were doing.) In Microsoft Word you can achieve the same effect with tabs, but if you really want to use an en space, click Insert > Symbol > Special Characters > En Space.

In traditional typesetting, there are several other kinds of spaces, including (getting progressively fatter) the zero-width space, the hair space, the thin space, and the three-to-em space.

As its name indicates, the zero-width space has no width; you can't even see it. Nevertheless, it will break at the end of a line, which comes in handy when you've got a long string of characters that you *do* want to break but that otherwise wouldn't. For example, you might have some words joined by an em dash--like this. Ordinarily Microsoft Word won't break on the left side of the dash, which can make for some ugly typography if you've got long words and narrow columns. To remedy the problem, put a zero-width space in front of the dash. How? Microsoft Word doesn't include one, so you'll have to make your own:

1. Insert an em space (since we want the size to be fixed relative to the current point size).

2. Select the space.

3. Set the space's point size to 1. (We'd set it to 0, but Word won't allow it. Still, 1 works pretty well, although you *can* see it, which means you'd better balance it with another one on the right side of the dash.)

The hair space is also sometimes used, for aesthetic purposes, on both sides of an em dash. I've also seen it used between the letter f and a closing quotation mark or other characters that look crowded together. Again, you'll have to make your own:

1. Insert an em space (since we want the size to be fixed relative to the current point size).

2. Select the space.

3. Set the space's point size to 1/10 of the current size, or as close to it as you can manage. Remember that you can type in .5 (4.5, 5.5, etc.) to bump up the size by half a point. If you need to make the hair space smaller than 1/10 of the current point size, feel free; many typographers do.

Then there's the thin space, which some typographers (French ones, for example) use after certain punctuation marks, such as the colon. It's also used to set off the first two numbers of years that are more than four numbers long: 10 000 B.C. (Remember, commas shouldn't be used in dates.) I've also seen it used between ellipses. To make a thin space:

1. Insert an em space (since we want the size to be fixed relative to the current point size).

2. Select the space.

3. Set the space's point size to 1/5 of the current size, or as close to it as you can manage. Remember that you can type in .5 (4.5, 5.5, etc.) to bump up the size by half a point. Some typographers define a thin space as half the size of a standard word space.

The three-to-em space, as you've probably surmised, is as wide as a third of the current point size. For a size of 12, that would be 4. The Chicago Manual of Style says to use this space between ellipses, which is okay with me. By now, you know how to make one.

There ought to be a better solution than making spaces by hand--PageMaker and QuarkXPress come to mind. But if you must work in Word, there is another way. It's dark and dangerous, and its name is Unicode. But that's a subject for another day.

By the way, I'm not saying you should actually *use* all these spaces in your day-to-day work. I'd use them only if I had to approximate fine typography in Microsoft Word, which is possible but certainly not easy. If you ever need to do that, maybe these spaces will help.

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READERS WRITE

Self-proclaimed Word heretic sent the following macros, which use Unicode to set zero-width spaces around various characters and character combinations (/, :/, and so on) to make sure they will break at the end of a line. Notice that you can modify the characters specified in Sub FixWordWrap to suit your own needs. (For example, you could use ^+ for an em dash.) If you don't understand what's going on with the characters, please see the articles on wildcard searching in past issues of Editorium Update. For information on how to use macros like these, see the May 30, 2001, issue of Editorium Update:

Using "Found" Macros

Thanks, Steve!

Sub FixWordWrap()
FixSymbolWordWrap "/{1,2}"
FixSymbolWordWrap ":/{1,2}"
FixSymbolWordWrap "[\]{1,2}"
FixSymbolWordWrap ":[\]{1,2}"
FixSymbolWordWrap "_"
End Sub
Private Sub FixSymbolWordWrap(Symbol As String)
' inserts a zero-width space after the symbol if text either side
Dim R As Range
Dim ZeroSpace As String
ZeroSpace = ChrW(8203)
On Error Resume Next
Const Pre As String = "([a-zA-Z0-9]"
Const Suf As String = ")([a-zA-Z0-9])"
Set R = ActiveDocument.Range
With R.Find
.MatchWildcards = True
.Text = Pre & Symbol & Suf
.Replacement.Text = "1" & ZeroSpace & "2"
.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
End With
End Sub

This macro will remove the zero-width spaces if you change your mind:

Sub UnFixWordWrap()
Dim R As Range
Set R = ActiveDocument.Range
With R.Find
.Text = ChrW(8203)
.Replacement.Text = ""
.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
End With
End Sub

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RESOURCES

For Microsoft's take on typographical spaces, see the article here:

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/developers/fdsspec/spaces.htm

Check out this terrific typography primer from Robin Williams (the typographer, not the actor):

Click to access 9507lsrw.pdf