Quote:
Originally Posted by Noirtier
I was just testing out the "Polish books" feature for the first time, and noticed that it replaced double hyphens with em-dash, even if there are spaces to either side of them. [...]
I.e.:
"...text -- text..." → "...text – text..."
"...text--text..." → "..text—text..."
Maybe there are other conventions/preferences over this, but it would be very much appreciated if there was at least an option to use en-dashes instead of em-dashes.
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DiapDealers's fantastic plugins can already do this:
Once you install it, you can get multiple options in a dropdown:
- (em|en)-dash settings
- Do not educate dashes
- -- = emdash (no endash support)
- -- = emdash | --- = endash
- --- = emdash | -- = endash
The 4th one is exactly what you want to have enabled.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rjwse@aol.com
I use en dash and em dash quite a bit. [...] I found out to my horror from a prior post reply that Amazon will not recognize the em dash, so I fudge it by 'running together' 3 regular dashes with a span whose spacing has been reduced. I use the triple sometimes to surround page numbers at bottom of PDF pages.
[...]
I use the triple dash like this for mid-chapter centered scene breaks: em dash space scene space em dash.
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No. The two rare dash characters:
- U+2E3A = ⸺ = TWO-EM DASH
- U+2E3B = ⸻ = THREE-EM DASH
should not be used like that.
Instead, it's better to create those lines via CSS. That was one of the first questions I asked MobileRead wayyyy back in:
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Side Note: If you want to know the proper use-cases for two + three em dashes, see my post in:
Long story short:
- 2-em dash is for "missing text".
- 3-em dash is for "same exact author" in Bibliographies.
I also
strongly recommend against using those 2 dash characters, because of all the missing font + problematic rendering issues. Instead, use the equivalent amount of normal EM DASHes.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rjwse@aol.com
It's the extra long dash that won't show correctly in kindle previewer. I quit (more or less) using it from advice on mobileread.
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Yep, exactly. Barely any fonts have those 2 rarer dash characters, and it will cause more trouble than it solves.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rjwse@aol.com
I break USA convention (if, indeed, those rules still apply) by separating like this: text space en dash space text. That is, I do not allow the en dash to touch text (as is the convention). I find that it is even worse looking when done as follows: text comma en dash space text. This was done frequently a century ago by many authors. Or, maybe the type setter did this. I use the triple dash like this for mid-chapter centered scene breaks: em dash space scene space em dash.
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You may also be interested in all the dash discussion back in:
I cover all the use-cases + spaced vs. non-spaced versions (American vs. British, Chicago vs. Other Style Guides), etc., etc.