Subj : Christian Fellowship To : Ky Moffet From : Barry Martin Date : Fri Sep 27 2024 07:47:00 Hi Ky! > >The double hyphen (--) is > > translated to a long hyphen by LibreOffice. > KM> Actually, no. It's not translated into an m-dash, as one would > KM> expect, but into an n-dash, used by absolutely no one for > KM> absolutely nothing. > (Who would have thought a discussion of dashes outside of running!) KM> It's a mad dash for the word processor! Now you're dashing my hopes! > I sort of recall the 'm-dash', not an 'n-dash' -- and only heard of the > m-dash in the past few years. Something I haven't (yet) incorporated > into my vocabulary. KM> I knew m-dash (emdash) first, myself. N-dash of course comes KM> after. And thus o'dash (mainly used in Ireland!) > KM> Another weirdness is that the -- to n-dash only works if there's > KM> a space to either side, which is fine for some things but not how > KM> book publishing wants it. > (So how does book publishing desire?) I do the space-dash-dash-space > thing: to me looks better and conveys the usage. A dash (meaning KM> I prefer space-dash-dash-space as well (unless at the end of a KM> sentence), not only looks better but doesn't lead to long strings KM> that don't linebreak gracefully. BUT... this does not translate KM> well into ebook formats, which are XML in a wrapper. You get KM> extra spaces on one end and it looks stupid. You can use a KM> nonbreaking space but then you get different problems. KM> So for final formatting, all the -- become--shrunk. I'm thinking when setting up the the typeface and layout for book it's just as much artist as mechanical. One does not want the single sentence (or worse: word) on the following page. The letters, punctuation, etc., must look pleasing to the eyes, ...Etc., etc., etc. > hyphen) without a space (to me) implies the word is hyphenated: as in > 'non-stop'. A space-hyphen-space implies a brief pause, semi-colon-ish, > but a semi-colon is a hare longer and attaches two similar and sort of > continuous thoughts whereas the hyphen is sort of like a pause for a > inhalation. KM> A proper m-dash is long enough that it's obviously NOT a hyphen. KM> However, some word processors and some fonts mangle them all to KM> the same length, at least in the display. RoughDraft does that, KM> so I don't use m-dash until final formatting (Wordpad, then KM> Calibre). I have probably noted the various lengths of the dashes but not paid all that much attention to the detail. > (Wonder how I'm doing? A non-technical English speaker trying to > descibe punctuation to someone who is well-versed in it!) KM> Oh, wait til you see German or Spanish punctuation.... I haven't noticed all that much difference in German punctuation -- main difference I can think of is the umlaut. Oh, and their quote marks are the << >>. ...And the eszett (sort of a beta-looking character for 'ss': Traungasse. Spanish has a nice option: the upside-down exclamation point at the beginning of the sentence. Suupose it does spoil the surprise! > KM> The problem is that there's no real standard for m-dash (there > KM> are three different codes in RTF, and gods know how LibreOffice's > KM> XML handles it), however there is a standard for n-dash. So > KM> that's what it uses, unless you paste in a proper m-dash or have > KM> it assigned as a special character. It may be *calling* an > KM> m-dash, but it is an n-dash. (About a third to half shorter than > KM> an m-dash, but about double the length of a hyphen.) > I would half-guess if someone like a programmer were to select a > punctuation mark he would slect the one with a standard behind it, so > the folks at LibreOffice accidentally selected the wrong dash style. KM> It was more "anything that is RTF is Microsoft, therefore we will KM> not support it." And yes it was that stupid. It's WHY there is no KM> real RTF editor for linux. Well, there's one sort of but it KM> hasn't been updated in about 12 years, and wasn't very good to KM> start with. NO, the mess LibreOffice and the like make of RTF KM> export doesn't count. (Includes all the printing and layout codes KM> and screws up ebook formatting, so has to be manually stripped KM> anyway, which is a PITA if you don't have a very old HTML KM> convertor to deal with it. We're talking 1995, and it's a KM> Microsoft tool, so... back to the same stupid objection.) I have 'noticed' when I copy in a document (from a website to LibreOffice) there are numerous strange possibilities: won't import then entire document -- there are invisible characters saying 'stop copying here!'. Copy in that part, go on to the next part.... Pictures give all sorts of strangeness: sometimes HUGE (as big as the 'page', sometimes schmooshed, sometimes a hollow box.... Copy and paste. I started copying stuff to my hard drive because sometimes impossible to find the source material again. And sometimes the site purges, or even goes bye-bye. > KM> In fact now that I think of it, I need to see if I can change the > KM> autocorrect so it'll give me a proper m-dash. Or make it 3 > KM> hyphens. > Three hyphens means a tagline is coming up! KM> Two mean end of message! But one we just keep going with a bit of a pause! > LibreOffice (and so probably other word processors) has a search-and- > replace function: ^H. (You're welcome Mike!) KM> Yeah, they put it somewhere nonstandard. Probably means something to the person who inserted the routine. ...."The eck with this manual searching!!" > .. Avoid commas, that are not necessary. KM> .. "Bones! I! have! finally! learned! punctuation!!" Hupeeeeeeeee! ¯ ® ¯ BarryMartin3@MyMetronet.NET ® ¯ ® .... Orchestras are basically 1800's cover bands. --- MultiMail/Win32 v0.47 þ wcECHO 4.2 ÷ ILink: The Safe BBS þ Bettendorf, IA --- QScan/PCB v1.20a / 01-0462 * Origin: ILink: CFBBS | cfbbs.no-ip.com (454:1/1) .