en dash to em dash

[writerwoman]

I have a large document in which I need to change the en (short)
dashes to em (long) dashes. Is there any way I can do this without
having to go through the document line by line to change them?

Cheryl

 

[Patty Winter]

I have a large document in which I need to change the en (short)
dashes to em (long) dashes. Is there any way I can do this without
having to go through the document line by line to change them?

Sure, do a search and replace and select Replace All instead of
Find Next. Or is there some complication with the situation that
I'm not seeing?


Patty

 

[writerwoman]

Sure, do a search and replace and select Replace All instead of
Find Next. Or is there some complication with the situation that
I'm not seeing?

Patty

Hi, Patty,

Here's the complication: When you type (word)--(word) (space), that
is, a word, no space, two hyphens, no space, another word and then
space, MSW will automatically change those two hyphens to a long, em
dash. (Which is great.)

If you type a word, a space, a hyphen, a space, MSW will change that
single hyphen into an en dash.

Now. I want to changes all the en dashes in this document to em
dashes, i.e. a word, the em dash, a word.

BUT I don't know how or what to type in the "Find" box and the
"Replace With" box so that MSW will recognize that I mean the hyphens
it changed to ens and change them to ems.

I tried just putting a hyphen in the "Find" box and a double hyphen in
the "Replace With" box, but that didn't work. Apparently MSW doesn't
know that that's what those ens used to be.

(If this wasn't a 300 page document, I wouldn't care.)

 

[Patty Winter]

Here's the complication: When you type (word)--(word) (space), that
is, a word, no space, two hyphens, no space, another word and then
space, MSW will automatically change those two hyphens to a long, em
dash. (Which is great.)

If you type a word, a space, a hyphen, a space, MSW will change that
single hyphen into an en dash.

Now. I want to changes all the en dashes in this document to em
dashes, i.e. a word, the em dash, a word.

BUT I don't know how or what to type in the "Find" box and the
"Replace With" box so that MSW will recognize that I mean the hyphens
it changed to ens and change them to ems.

Just as I said, you type an en dash into the Find box and an em dash
into the Replace With box.

Are you saying that you don't know how to type en and em dashes? Perhaps
you don't, since you mentioned that you've been letting MS Word make them
for you. Well then, an en dash is Option-hyphen, and an em dash is Option-
Shift-hyphen. Easy-peasy!

I tried just putting a hyphen in the "Find" box and a double hyphen in
the "Replace With" box, but that didn't work. Apparently MSW doesn't
know that that's what those ens used to be.

No, it wouldn't know that, because they now have different ASCII codes.
They changed when MS Word substituted your hyphens for dashes.


Patty

 

[Diane Van]

I'm on my ipad so can't check but I just usually copy and paste into
the find and replace boxes the items I want to change. Hope it works
for you.

 

[Robert A. Woodward]

Hi, Patty,

Here's the complication: When you type (word)--(word) (space), that
is, a word, no space, two hyphens, no space, another word and then
space, MSW will automatically change those two hyphens to a long, em
dash. (Which is great.)

If you type a word, a space, a hyphen, a space, MSW will change that
single hyphen into an en dash.

Now. I want to changes all the en dashes in this document to em
dashes, i.e. a word, the em dash, a word.

BUT I don't know how or what to type in the "Find" box and the
"Replace With" box so that MSW will recognize that I mean the hyphens
it changed to ens and change them to ems.

The bottom of the Replace dialog box has a "Special" button; that
activates a pop up menu that lists a number of special characters,
including both en dash and em dash.

 

[writerwoman]

The bottom of the Replace dialog box has a "Special" button; that
activates a pop up menu that lists a number of special characters,
including both en dash and em dash.

Thanks, Robert. One of these days I'm going to somewhat almost know
what I'm doing.

Cheryl

 

[writerwoman]

I'm on my ipad so can't check but I just usually copy and paste into
the find and replace boxes the items I want to change.  Hope it works
for you.

Thanks, Diane. I didn't have to try it because the other worked, but
I'm keeping your suggestion filed away for future reference.

Cheryl

 

[writerwoman]

Thanks, Diane. I didn't have to try it because the other worked, but
I'm keeping your suggestion filed away for future reference.

Cheryl

Diane, I discovered I had a mix of "curly" and straight quotes
scattered in the document -- probably from working on it such a LONG
time, on many computers and in many different versions of MSW.

Copying and pasting as you suggested worked just fine.

Thanks!

 

[writerwoman]

Just as I said, you type an en dash into the Find box and an em dash
into the Replace With box.

Are you saying that you don't know how to type en and em dashes? Perhaps
you don't, since you mentioned that you've been letting MS Word make them
for you. Well then, an en dash is Option-hyphen, and an em dash is Option-
Shift-hyphen. Easy-peasy!


No, it wouldn't know that, because they now have different ASCII codes.
They changed when MS Word substituted your hyphens for dashes.

Patty

Patty, this is Reply #2. The other one apparently didn't show up.
Basically, it said THANKS!

I didn't know how to actually type dashes. Your instructions worked
and all is well.

Cheryl

 

[Patty Winter]

Diane, I discovered I had a mix of "curly" and straight quotes
scattered in the document -- probably from working on it such a LONG
time, on many computers and in many different versions of MSW.

Copying and pasting as you suggested worked just fine.

That's great that copying and pasting works; I've noticed before that
depending on whether you have curly quotes turned on or not, searching
and replacing for quotes that you type into the Find/Replace box yourself
will have different results.

One can also search and replace by ASCII numbers. For example, "^210"
will look for or insert opening double quotes.


Patty