On Aug 28, 2014, at 4:03 AM, Jerry <lancebo...@qwest.net> wrote: > I have a fancy hyphenated word, crosstalk-cancelled, where I spell it with (I > believe) the proper - which is an n-dash. When this is rendered in the > vicinity of a line wrap, the entire thing gets pushed to the next line, > leaving a lot of ugly white space in the first line. So I inserted a > hyphenation point after the -. This shows on the LyX screen as sort of -- > which is my original n-dash and a shorter blue dash, probably supposed to > represent a hyphen. This is all great, but when this version is rendered, the > line break now appears after crosstalk--, that is, both the n-dash _and_ the > hyphenation point are rendered which looks very wrong. What is the > typographer's say on this, and is LyX doing the right thing. Also, is this a > LyX problem or a TeX problem? My guess the typographer would say, let the > n-dash stand alone if it occurs at a line break. > > Jerry
Thanks for all your kind responses. I need to clear up this thread for a few reasons. I started it with a muddle-headed premise--that the n-dash is appropriately used in places such as crosstalk-cancelled; it is not. A hyphen should be used there. I've known this since grammar school and for some reason a bit in my brain flipped (bit rot's a bitch) a couple months ago and I started doing it wrong. So the best thing would be to ignore this whole thread. However... LyX, apparently like LaTeX and I suppose TeX, denotes the hyphen as an actual hyphen -, the n-dash as two hyphens --, and the m-dash as three hyphens ---. When entered this way in LyX, line breaking, if necessary, happens as expected, after the hyphen or dash. However... Something curious happens on my computer which is a Macintosh. I don't know if it happens on other computers but it would be interesting to know. (Hint.) Specifically, on Macs the n-dash is entered with Option-hyphen and the m-dash with Shift-Option-hyphen; this has been the case since 1984 and my fingers know it well. The LyX documentation says that the - -- --- method should be used. (It does not say _not_ to do the Mac-like thing.) Being contrary (and a newish LyX user) I tried the traditional Mac way, and it works--the desired character is displayed on the LyX window and also is rendered correctly in printed output. So that is the habit I continued for working in LyX. Therein lies my problem. Even though the traditional Mac entry method displays correctly on-screen and in-print, the n- and m-dash so entered DO NOT ALLOW LINE BREAKS. And that's why I wrote. Is this worth a request ticket--to make these alternate entry methods compatible with LyX? Jerry Some remedial reading for me: http://www.dashhyphen.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash
