Preventing breaks at the end of a line.

[AlexBell]

I've just prepared an ebook which several times refers to a city as T--, with the -- as a long line. When this occurs at the end of a line print the T is at the end of the line, and the -- is on the next line.

I've tried T— and T*&mdash, but they don't work, and my Sony chokes on T & # 2805; as does MobileRead.

Is there another way of forcing the T and the — to stick together?

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by AlexBell

Is there another way of forcing the T and the — to stick together.

AFAIK, the only thing that works is wrapping words with em dashes in spans and assigning them a white-space: nowrap style. For example:

span.nowrap {
  white-space: nowrap;
}

<p>He lived in <span class="nowrap">M&mdash;</span> at that time.</p>

[JSWolf]

Should that not be a hyphen instead of an em dash? That does not seem an appropriate of an em dash.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Should that not be a hyphen instead of an em dash?

Redaction

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

Redaction

Thanks for that. I did forget about it.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

AFAIK, the only thing that works is wrapping words with em dashes in spans and assigning them a white-space: nowrap style. For example:

span.nowrap {
  white-space: nowrap;
}

<p>He lived in <span class="nowrap">M&mdash;</span> at that time.</p>

that's been a mote in my eye for aeons

BR

[GrannyGrump]

If you are using justified alignment --- when using "no-wrap" in a span that way, if the line is too long for the screen width, which result will you get:
will it bleed off the edge, will the spanned word drop down to the next line, or will the kerning be tightened up on the earlier part of the sentence?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

If you are using justified alignment --- when using "no-wrap" in a span that way, if the line is too long for the screen width, which result will you get:
will it bleed off the edge, will the spanned word drop down to the next line, or will the kerning be tightened up on the earlier part of the sentence?

The rendering engine will treat it in the same way that it treats any other word of the equivalent length: either fit it into the same line by reducing white space on the line, or wrap it to the next line.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

If you are using justified alignment --- when using "no-wrap" in a span that way, if the line is too long for the screen width, which result will you get:
will it bleed off the edge, will the spanned word drop down to the next line, or will the kerning be tightened up on the earlier part of the sentence?

In my tests the spanned word dropped down to the next line, however, this method apparently only works with older ADE versions. It worked with ADE 1.7 but not ADE 2-4.5.

Also inserting zero-width joiners or word joiners didn't help.

[HarryT]

What happens with newer versions? The word breaks at the em-dash?

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by HarryT

What happens with newer versions? The word breaks at the em-dash?

Yes.

[JSWolf]

Given that this doesn't work with ADE 2 on up, then I don't think there's a way to do this. Just forget the code and you'll just have to deal with the splits.

[Doitsu]

Apparently the deprecated ZWNBSP Unicode character () works and is supported by ADE 1.7-4.5.

For example:

<p>He lived in M&#65279;&mdash; at that time.</p>

[GeoffR]

Use a horizontal-bar (AKA quotation-dash, U+2015) instead of an em-dash.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

Use a horizontal-bar (AKA quotation-dash, U+2015) instead of an em-dash.

That's a great idea, however, most standard fonts don't support this character. I.e., you'd have to embed a font.