[duxuser] Re: m-dashes and n-dashes
- From: Jean Menzies <jemenzies@xxxxxxx>
- To: duxuser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 04 May 2006 13:31:32 -0600
It's a visual thing related to typography. In a proportional font like Times
New Roman which is the default font in Word, the program automatically knows
how much space to leave between letters of different sizes. In other words,
the print letter I takes up less room than a W. Proportional fonts like this
are also well-suited to using proper typographical punctuation similar to what
you would see in a book. An em-dash is basically two dashes joined together to
make one solid line instead of 2 side-by-side dashes like what we see in
braille or what you may have used back in the typewriter days. An en-dash is
like a single dash but is slightly wider than a normal dash. It's used in
plases like when you express a date range as in 1999 - 2003. The dash here
might typically be an en-dash.
But I gather these don't translate with DBT, so you need to replace them with
the conventional dashes. Hope that helps.
Jean
.
----- Original Message -----
From: dhansen@xxxxxxx
To: Duxbury support
Sent: Thursday, May 04, 2006 1:23 PM
Subject: [duxuser] m-dashes and n-dashes
Can anyone enlighten me on m-dashes and n-dashes? What is their purpose as
opposed to an ordinary dash?
Thanks
Don
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