How to insert non-breaking hyphen?

[JoanM]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) Processor: Intel I have searched unsuccessfully to find out how to insert a non-breaking hyphen into a Word doc. Used to be really simple ... but now ????

Help! Thanks.

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Joan;

I don't know what "really simple" method you remember, but it hasn't changed
in Word 2008 from what it was in 2004 & prior. Either go to Insert> Symbol>
Special Characters or use the keyboard shortcut of Shift+Command+ -

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[JoanM]

Thank you for responding! It may not have changed, but unless you can remember the key commands, forget finding out 'how to' with Word Help. I did stumble onto the 'command+shift+-' combination today by plugging in various key commands just before reading your reply. But really, who thinks of a hyphen as a 'symbol'. I like things back when 'key commands' were really easy to find.
I need to vent here a bit about Word. My biggest beef is that I searched for the 'non-breaking hyphen' in Word Help in all variables of the search term I could think of from simplest to compound, and Help did not come up with how to insert a 'non-breaking hyphen'.
That is just one of many, many times that Help has NOT been at all helpful when a simple word is plugged into Search. If I didn't know from past experience that it is do-able I would have found nothing in Help to assist.
For example: a search for 'non-breaking hyphen' brought up:
Hyphenate text automatically
Hyphenate part of a document manually
Hyphenate an entire document manually

NONE of which described the simple key commands for non-breaking hyphen.

Thanks again for responding.

 

[Patty Winter]

I need to vent here a bit about Word. My biggest beef is that I searched for the 'non-breaking hyphen' in Word Help in all variables of the search term I could think of from simplest to compound, and Help did not come up with how to insert a 'non-breaking hyphen'. <br>

Note to self: Stick with Word 2004, where a search for the phrase
"non-breaking hyphen" in Word Help returns:

* Insert an optional hyphen or a nonbreaking hyphen
* About hyphenating text


Patty

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Patty:

Stick with Word 2004, Patty

The Help in Word 2008 is back to the pre-Word X days: it's truly useless.
But the worst part of it is that the person who is responsible for the mess
doesn't think there's a problem...

Cheers

Note to self: Stick with Word 2004, where a search for the phrase
"non-breaking hyphen" in Word Help returns:

* Insert an optional hyphen or a nonbreaking hyphen
* About hyphenating text


Patty

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[Phillip Jones, C.E.T.]

- type hyphen
_ shift hyphen (underscore)
— option shift plus Hyphen (em Dash)
– option hyphen – (en Dash)
- shift command -

 

[Patty Winter]

Stick with Word 2004, Patty

Will do, John!

The Help in Word 2008 is back to the pre-Word X days: it's truly useless.
But the worst part of it is that the person who is responsible for the mess
doesn't think there's a problem...

Ouch! It sounds like you know that from painful personal experience... :-(
Maybe you could get a helmet so it doesn't hurt as much when you beat
your head against the wall.


Patty

 

[CyberTaz]

Your assessment of Office 2008 Help is far too benevolent The fact is
that it is virtually worthless. It's particularly poor on this issue because
the overall feature of Symbols & Special Characters was given virtually no
attention in the development of Office 2008. My understanding is that the
decision was made to not devote resources to it because of the capability
provided by the OS X Character Viewer ‹ which I heartily recommend.

If it isn't yet activated on your Mac go to System Preferences & add it to
the Menu Bar. I believe it's in the preferences group called either Language
or International in Leopard (it's now known as "Language & Text" Preferences
in Snow Leopard. Look it up in Mac Help... I believe you'll find it far more
useful & it's available in any Mac app you're running, not just Office apps.

It wouldn't hurt to drop a line to MacBU by way of Help> Send Feedback to
let them know exactly what your experience has been. As John replied here,
we can plead the case until we're unconscious, but it's response from the
'general public' that's more likely to be heard.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Patty:

You are correct, there is "beating" and "Heads" involved.

But the head I had in mind is not the one on my shoulders

I have been in and around computing for 30 years (like Bob, although he
claims to be younger...). Long enough to know that like anything else, the
software industry is enslaved to "fashion", and this year's fashion is
"metrication".

What isn't measured doesn't matter... You know this nonsense... Invented
by the Harvard Business School, I believe, and very popular right up until
the global financial crisis neutered America. The business community is now
slowly unpicking itself from the damage this has caused. The software
industry will take a little longer...

The problem we have is that Microsoft is using metrics to determine which
help topics are "popular" and which are not. The "popular" topics are
getting the effort and money, the "unpopular" ones are getting deleted.

We tried to explain to them that the fundamental flaw in this methodology is
that "You can't count what isn't there!" There's nothing in the metrics to
reveal the topics that are needed but don't exist, let alone the topics that
are not used because they're rubbish.

Which is why I keep exhorting people in here to use the "Send Feedback"
buttons on the bottom of each Help topic to send your message directly in to
the person responsible for making the decisions on where to spend the money
on the help system.

If you can't find it at all, or you find it but it's useless, or it's simply
not there... Click the "This was useless!!" button and tell them why.

Otherwise, it will never get any better...

Cheers

Will do, John!


Ouch! It sounds like you know that from painful personal experience... :-(
Maybe you could get a helmet so it doesn't hurt as much when you beat
your head against the wall.


Patty

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[Patty Winter]

The problem we have is that Microsoft is using metrics to determine which
help topics are "popular" and which are not. The "popular" topics are
getting the effort and money, the "unpopular" ones are getting deleted.

How are they obtaining these metrics? Surveys? Counting questions sent
to their feedback address?

Besides, why would they want to delete a help topic just because they
think it isn't used much? How much space can a few paragraphs of plain
text take up, anyway? Somebody, sometime, is going to want to know about
that topic.

We tried to explain to them that the fundamental flaw in this methodology is
that "You can't count what isn't there!" There's nothing in the metrics to
reveal the topics that are needed but don't exist, let alone the topics that
are not used because they're rubbish.


If you can't find it at all, or you find it but it's useless, or it's simply
not there... Click the "This was useless!!" button and tell them why.

Will do! Although it seems to be a problem that's mostly affecting
Word 2008 users...

BTW, one of my standard tricks if I'm having problems with an application
is to do a Google search. Sometimes university helpdesks, user groups,
and other people have very helpful tips that aren't on the vendor's own
website. (Or in their Help function!) Or maybe they *are* on the vendor's
website, but this is a faster way to find them. For example, I just typed
"Microsoft Word nonbreaking hyphen" into Google and the first result was
actually on MS's website. On other occasions, I have found the information
I needed on non-vendor sites. Anyway, something for folks to keep in mind.


Patty