Handling Dashes and Quotation Marks

This part of the chapter looks into a pesky aspect of Word 2000: how to handle punctuation marks. As you must have noticed by now, the program occasionally reaches over your shoulder and enters punctuation marks for you. For example, Word 2000 is geared for curly quotation marks and puts them in documents unless you tell it not to. And it enters ellipses (…) automatically as well. This part of the chapter explains how to usurp Word 2000 and take command of punctuation marks.

Inserting Em and En Dashes

Dashes are punctuation marks and are different from hyphens. An em dash shows an abrupt change of direction in the middle of a sentence—know what I mean? You can always spot an amateur desktop publisher because amateurs use dashes incorrectly. In the following illustration, the last sentence is the one with a proper em dash. The other em dashes were made by amateurs.

NOTE: Unless you've changed Word 2000's default options, the program enters an em dash automatically when you type two hyphens in a row. If that isn't happening and you want it to happen, choose Tools | AutoCorrect, click the AutoFormat As You Type tab, and click the Symbol Characters (- -) With Symbols (--) check box.

Similar to an em dash, an en dash is used to show inclusive numbers or time periods. Amateurs let the hyphen do the work of the en dash. In the following illustration, en dashes appear in the first line, but hyphens appear in the second.

To include an em or en dash in a document, do the following:

1.      Place the cursor where the dash is to appear.

2.      Choose Insert | Symbol. The Symbol dialog box appears.

3.      Click the Special Characters tab. It is shown in Figure 7-11.

Callout

Click an option for an em or en dash.

4.      Either click Em Dash at the top of the list, or click En Dash, the second item on the list.

5.      Click the Insert button.

6.      Click the Close button.

TIP: If you prefer pressing keys instead of clicking commands, you might prefer the keyboard shortcut for entering an em dash: Simultaneously press the Alt key, the Ctrl key, and the minus key on the numeric keypad (the key in the upper-right corner of the keyboard). To enter an en dash, simultaneously press the Ctrl key and the minus key on the numeric keypad.