Hyphens, dashes, minus signs
February 4, 2024The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) summarises the differences between these punctuation marks: https://cmosshoptalk.com/2024/01/23/hyphens-and-dashes-a-refresher/
Note, this is from CMOS (a US style guide) and other style guides may differ about spacing around such characters. However, most will agree on en dashes for ranges and em dashes for parenthetical points. For example, the Australian Government Style Manual has this guidance for the various dash symbols: https://www.stylemanual.gov.au/grammar-punctuation-and-conventions/punctuation/dashes
Many of my clients use negative numbers in their documents, so I have a PerfectIt wildcard find/replace set up to find <space><hyphen><number> and change it to a minus sign, if that is appropriate for the circumstance.
[Links last checked February 2024]
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I do a lot of math and technical writing in Word, using MathType instead of MS Equation Writer, and, to emulate math style, use a heap of HTML escape (ALT+numpad) codes in the text body.
I write in TNR and Arial, Courier New gets a run occasionally. These seem to be most accommodating of the codes. Word vacillates between a hyphen and an en dash in math expressions, depending on context(?).
minus – (ALT+0150) or (CTRL + minus)
multiplication × ((ALT+0215)
divide ÷ (ALT+0247)
half ½ (ALT+0189)
minus/plus (ALT+8723), tricky to find
degrees º or ° (ALT+0186, 0176). I like the bigger sign. OK in the new Aptos font but rubbish in Calibri.
minute ‘ (ALT+8242), second ” (ALT8243). TNR, Aptos gives curlies.
Using the codes above 0255 allows me to get almost any Latin, Greek or math symbol in my chosen fonts. (Lucida Console replicates an IBM Selectric golfball from days of yore).
Now to work out how to get rid of the 3000 other fonts I don’t use in the document’s font list.
Thanks for you work
John