Helpful as always, Microsoft Word will automatically insert em dashes for you--but with an interesting twist. I'll tell you what it is in just a minute. But first, here's how to turn on those automatic dashes if you want to use them:
1. Click the Tools menu.
2. Click "AutoCorrect."
3. Click the tab labeled "AutoFormat As You Type."
4. Under "Replace as you type," put a check in the box labeled "Symbol characters (--) with symbols (--)."
5. Click the OK button.
To see how the feature works:
1. Create a new document and type in a word.
2. After you've typed the word, don't hit the spacebar; instead, type two hyphens in a row.
3. Once again, don't hit the spacebar; instead, type another word.
4. *Now* hit the spacebar.
Wow, your two hyphens have turned into an em dash! What, you already knew you could do that? Okay, here's the interesting twist:
1. Create a new document and type in a word.
2. After you've typed the word, *do* hit the spacebar.
3. Type a single hyphen.
4. Hit the spacebar again.
5. Type another word.
6. Hit the spacebar again.
Wow, your single hyphen has turned into an en dash! What's going on here?
In the world of typography, there are several kinds of dashes, each with a different length. As the Chicago Manual of Style (5.105) notes, "There are en dashes, em dashes, and 2- and 3-em dashes. . . . Each kind of dash has its own uses." Chicago specifies that the em dash should be used to indicate "sudden breaks and abrupt changes" and "amplifying, explanatory, and digressive elements."
Some designers, however, beg to differ. Instead of using an em dash, they use an en dash surrounded by spaces. Robert Bringhurst argues for this in his book The Elements of Typographic Style (p. 80):
"The em dash is the nineteenth-century standard, still prescribed in many editorial style books, but the em dash is too long for use with the best text faces. Like the oversized space between sentences, it belongs to the padded and corseted aesthetic of Victorian typography. Used as a phrase marker - thus - the en dash is set with a normal word space either side."
In my opinion, Bringhurst is wrong. The whole point of the em dash is to indicate an abrupt change, and a long dash does that better than a short one. That's why Messrs. Garamond, Goudy, and Gill *designed* long dashes for their typefaces, fer cryin' out loud. The shorter en dash surrounded by spaces may look "prettier," but it is also less forceful, and form should follow function. That's my take on it, anyway.
The interesting thing is that Microsoft seems to be trying to accommodate *both* usages. If you type two hyphens in a row, you'll get an em dash. If you type space, hyphen, space, you'll get an en dash with spaces. Chicago or Bringhurst, take your pick. Thanks, Microsoft!
You can learn more about the Chicago Manual of Style here:
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/12245.ctl
And you can learn more about The Elements of Typographic Style here:
http://www.typebooks.org/r-elements.htm
Thanks to Steve Hudson for suggesting this topic.
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READERS WRITE
Bill Fosbury wrote:
I saw "Content vs preparation" at:
http://www.planetpublish.com/mainpage.asp?webpageid=231
It talks about the Document Map and the Outline Level.
I have the opposite problem. After saving a Lotus WordPro file as a MS Word file, I opened it in Word and saw lots of unwanted stuff in the Document Map. After spend several hours experimenting I discovered the Outline Level and changed it BACK to "Body text". The item disappeared from the Document Map. Since I had so many to change, I figured out how to write some Visual Basic code to change all of them. That worked fine:
Public Sub RemoveFromDocumentMap()
Dim aParagraph As Paragraph
For Each aParagraph In ActiveDocument.Paragraphs
aParagraph.Range.ParagraphFormat.OutlineLevel = wdOutlineLevelBodyText
Next
End Sub
BUT, after saving the file and then reopening it, good old Word changed the Outline Level for all those chunks of text BACK to "Level 1".
A few hours later I came to the realization about what I think is happening and now have a solution. Following this path in Help:
Help
Answer Wizard
search: document map
"Troubleshoot working with the document map"
select: "The Document Map doesn't display some or all of the document's headings."
brings one to this key sentence: "If Word can't find any headings formatted with the heading styles or outline levels, it automatically searches the document for paragraphs that look like headings "
My file does NOT contain any headings (yet).
I read that sentence many times but its significance had not set in.
This is what is happening:
* there are no headings in my document
* when my program changes the outline level to "body text" that removes ALL document map candidates.
* everything disappears for the document map
* when I close and reopen the file, that key sentence comes into play
* since there are NO HEADINGS, it searches for candidates, as that sentence says, and it brings back everything that my program had gotten rid of.
I will
* run my program to change the outline level to "body text"
* then add the headings that I want
* the next time I open the file the document map builder will be happy the next time I open the file because I will have some heads and I will therefore not look for candidates.
After reading Bill's message, I responded:
What you've said makes perfect sense. Document Map can't work unless it has something to work with. So if it doesn't, rather than just sit there blank (and leave the user wondering why nothing's happening), it autoformats the document so it *will* have something to work with. Very typical of Microsoft's general "friendliness" that ends up causing problems rather than solving them. A better approach would have been for Word to say something like "Your document has no headings styles that can be displayed in Document Map. Please apply heading styles and try again." Oh, well.
Thanks to Bill for the useful information.
_________________________________________
RESOURCES
The Get It Write tip archive offers this useful advice on using dashes:
http://www.getitwriteonline.com/archive/091502.htm
But it also offers many other articles for writers and editors:
http://www.getitwriteonline.com/archive/tips.htm
Want tips delivered free by email? You can sign up here:
http://www.getitwriteonline.com/signup.cfm
