Dashed awkward dashes

[Steve Hawkins]

The automatic conversion of - or -- to dash seems to be an entirely random
process. Sometimes, a nice little blue underline tag appears to ask
permission; sometimes a dash just appears; most of the time nothing happens?

If one applies dashes by autoformatting after the event - even if all the
other boxes are unticked - the whole doc layout is changed as well.

Why is there no 'dash' key (can I assign one?)?
(I used to use 'alt' keys to add such characters but most of the time
nothing seems to happen when I use either the 'Alt' or 'Alt Gr' keys plus
the relevant number for these or fractions or accents these days.)

How does one get this feature to work properly?

Regards,
SteveH

 

[Jay Freedman]

The automatic conversion of - or -- to dash seems to be an entirely random
process. Sometimes, a nice little blue underline tag appears to ask
permission; sometimes a dash just appears; most of the time nothing happens?

If one applies dashes by autoformatting after the event - even if all the
other boxes are unticked - the whole doc layout is changed as well.

Why is there no 'dash' key (can I assign one?)?
(I used to use 'alt' keys to add such characters but most of the time
nothing seems to happen when I use either the 'Alt' or 'Alt Gr' keys plus
the relevant number for these or fractions or accents these days.)

How does one get this feature to work properly?

Regards,
SteveH

Suzanne S. Barnhill explained the AutoFormat behavior here:
http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.word.docmanagement/msg/5542814b03b50394?hl=en&

The default shortcut keys are Ctrl + NumPad minus for the en dash and
Ctrl + Alt + NumPad minus for the em dash.

The corresponding Alt + number codes are 150 and 0151, but you must
type them on the number pad (not the top row of keys) and the NumLock
must be turned on.

The dashes are also available on the Special Characters tab of the
Insert > Symbol dialog.

See http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/InsertSpecChars.htm for a
full rundown.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Thanks for saving me from repeating myself!

 

[Steve Hawkins]

Thanks for the tips.
Are there no fixes for the auto thingy?

(I'm having trouble getting through to Office Update to day by the way too:
either an empty window, or frozen out during the scan...)

Regards,

SteveH

Thanks for saving me from repeating myself!

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup
so
all may benefit.

 

[Jay Freedman]

Hi Steve,

What kind of "fixes" are you looking for? The feature works as
designed. If you don't want the dashes to be changed automatically, go
to Tools | AutoCorrect | AutoFormat As You Type and uncheck the box
for "Hyphens with dash".

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP

Thanks for the tips.
Are there no fixes for the auto thingy?

(I'm having trouble getting through to Office Update to day by the way too:
either an empty window, or frozen out during the scan...)

Regards,

SteveH

 

[Steve Hawkins]

No, as I said to start with, the automatic function seems to be random:
sometimes it converts hyphens to dashes with no prompting; sometimes it puts
a little blue line underneath with a drop down beside it; most of the time
it just leaves me with a hyphen, or two.

Thanks anyway,

SteveH