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Formatting help

SaiDiaS 🚫

Does anyone know, if it's possible to have three en dash doing down, without it being changed into a single horizontal line. Something like this:

-
-
-

In my story Awakening, I used that as a marker to show that Arjun's powers was being used. However, on SOL it automatically changed into a single horizontal line. Eventually I changed it into this, "-""-""-", and it looks ugly.

tendertouch 🚫

@SaiDiaS

I just tried:
β€”{br}
β€”{br}
β€”{br}

In the format previewer and that worked.

Replies:   Sarkasmus
Sarkasmus 🚫

@tendertouch

There is a format previewer?

Replies:   Switch Blayde
Switch Blayde 🚫

@Sarkasmus

There is a format previewer?

Authors/Editors
then… Text Formatting Guide
then… Formatting Previewer

The Previewer was last updated in 2011 and is "under development." I wouldn't trust it.

Replies:   tendertouch
tendertouch 🚫

@Switch Blayde

I understand that, though it has worked for me when I've tried it as I work to get my formatting correct from basic text files.

Switch Blayde 🚫

@SaiDiaS

If I remember right, the dash(s) has to be the only thing on the line. So if you make it a dash with something else, like a period, it shouldn't turn it into a horizontal line. But that's a guess.

Switch Blayde 🚫

@SaiDiaS

Does anyone know, if it's possible to have three en dash doing down

According to the Previewer, a dash on a line by itself converts to a horizontal line.

However, an en-dash does not. I don't know if that's a quirk with the Previewer or that's the way it works. An en-dash on a Mac is the option key with the dash. I don't know what it is on a PC. The em-dash is the option key with the shift with the dash.

- dash
– en-dash
β€” em-dash

Replies:   helmut_meukel
helmut_meukel 🚫

@Switch Blayde

I don't know what it is on a PC

One way is to use the ALT key together with a four digit number:
ALT+0150 en-dash
ALT+0151 em-dash

HM.

Replies:   madnige  Switch Blayde
madnige 🚫
Updated:

@helmut_meukel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash#Typing_the_characters

...though I'd tend to use the Unicode from the table below, but not from this computer as the installed OS (ChaletOS 16.04) doesn't have a Unicode input method enabled (if I really need Unicode, I type it into another window of the computer in front of me, then copy-paste it into the VNC window for this one).

Switch Blayde 🚫

@helmut_meukel

One way is to use the ALT key together with a four digit number:

Maybe the ALT key on the PC is equivalent to the Option key on the Mac so the ALT key with the dash might be the way to get the en-dash.

Sarkasmus 🚫
Updated:

@Switch Blayde

Sadly, there is no way to type either en-dash nor em-dash on a PC-Keyboard, since they were designed after the old QWERTY-typewriter design. Back in the day, if people wanted an em-dash, they simply typed two hyphens and that is how it's done till today. That goes for Windows and all Linux distos. You really have to type in the four-digit ASCII-Code for the dashes.

Microsoft tried to work around that, by making Mircorost Word automatically convert any hyphen into an en-dash if it's next to a space on either side of it.

I guess, since Mac started advertising their machines to "Creatives" and Hipsters, they chose to do all the writers a courtesy or something and included it in their OS.

Replies:   Switch Blayde
Switch Blayde 🚫

@Sarkasmus

Sadly, there is no way to type either en-dash nor em-dash on a PC-Keyboard

ALT+0150 for the en-dash (hold down the ALT key and type 0150).
ALT+0151 for the em-dash (hold down the ALT key and type 0151).

Replies:   Sarkasmus  Dominions Son
Sarkasmus 🚫

@Switch Blayde

Dude, I wrote, in the Post you quoted, that he needs to type the four-digit code for the dashes.
There just isn't a designated key on a standard QWERTY-Keyboard for them.

Dominions Son 🚫

@Switch Blayde

Tried it. Win 10 desktop.

-
–
β€”

Interestingly, it only works with the number pad. If I try to do it with the number keys on the main part of the keyboard, it doesn't work.

Replies:   StarFleet Carl
StarFleet Carl 🚫

@Dominions Son

it only works with the number pad. If I try to do it with the number keys on the main part of the keyboard, it doesn't work.

Congratulations, you just learned WHY keyboards have number pads out there. Here's one for you. If you turn off NUM LOCK on the keyboard, those keys will work like arrows for moving your cursor around in a document or spreadsheet. They were really convenient back in the early days of PC gaming if they'd been programmed in properly, so you didn't have to use WASDQEZC for movement.

Replies:   Dominions Son
Dominions Son 🚫

@StarFleet Carl

Congratulations, you just learned...

Absolutely nothing you mentioned is something I wasn't already aware of.

Replies:   Dicrostonyx
Dicrostonyx 🚫

@Dominions Son

Challenge accepted!

Did you know that if you send the right print commands to a dot-matrix printer it will wobble back and forth and sort-of walk across a desk?

Replies:   Dominions Son
Dominions Son 🚫
Updated:

@Dicrostonyx

Did you know that if you send the right print commands to a dot-matrix printer it will wobble back and forth and sort-of walk across a desk?

I was certainly aware that some dot-matrix printers could generate a lot of vibration. But that someone had figured out a way to use that to get it to move in an even semi-controlled manner would definitely be new information (if it's true).

Replies:   Freyrs_stories
Freyrs_stories 🚫

@Dominions Son

there's a guy or maybe a few of them that make 'music' by sending commands to hard and floppy drives (remember those guys?) also seen it done with a bank of calculators that are tapped just right to make more recognisable music, but they seem to be japan only models from what I've seen

Michael Loucks 🚫

@Switch Blayde

I guess, since Mac started advertising their machines to "Creatives" and Hipsters, they chose to do all the writers a courtesy or something and included it in their OS.

Having control, option, and command keys gives Apple more flexibility with the keyboard.

These features existed long before anyone knew the term 'hipster'.

Replies:   awnlee jawking
awnlee jawking 🚫

@Michael Loucks

These features existed long before anyone knew the term 'hipster'.

So ladies hipster panties and hipster jeans post-date Apple? ;-)

AJ

Replies:   Michael Loucks
Michael Loucks 🚫

@awnlee jawking

So ladies hipster panties and hipster jeans post-date Apple? ;-)

I seriously doubt you meant that term in the 1940s sense (Jazz aficionados) but the jeans were a 90s thing and the mac pre-dates the jeans by a couple of decades.

At least as I remember history and language. :-)

Replies:   awnlee jawking
awnlee jawking 🚫

@Michael Loucks

Apple corp founded 1976.

Unable to find a start date for hipster jeans (also called low-rise) but they were popular in the 60s according to wikipedia.

As queenie allegedly said, recollections may vary ;-)

AJ

Replies:   Michael Loucks
Michael Loucks 🚫
Updated:

@awnlee jawking

hipster

They were called 'hip-hugger' where I grew up (Southern California).

Replies:   tendertouch
tendertouch 🚫

@Michael Loucks

Yep, never heard them called hipster jeans up in Washington either. Sounds strange to me. I don't even recall seeing them advertised as anything other than hiphuggers or low-rise.

Switch Blayde 🚫

@SaiDiaS

Since you can't enter an en-dash on a PC without a keyboard, there is one way for you to insert the en-dash in your story.

Copy it from one of the posts here that displays it and save it in a file. Whenever you need an en-dash, copy it from that file and paste it into your story.

Cumbersome? Yes. But it gets you what you want.

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