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Readers,
The dialogue window 'insert special character' does not show easily
en-dash (–) and em-dash (—), so had to use the unicode values (e.g.
ctrl+2013). Is there another way to select these types of characters
within LO?
LO334
Hi e-letter,
e-letter schrieb:
Readers,
The dialogue window 'insert special character' does not show easily
en-dash (–) and em-dash (—), so had to use the unicode values (e.g.
ctrl+2013). Is there another way to select these types of characters
within LO?
They are usually written via AutoCorrect. The simple hyphen is replaced with the en-dash or em-dash when the following word is finished. You find the rules at top of the AutoCorrect list. If the special replacement you need is missing, you can it to the list. Be aware, that the list depends on language.
Regina
You didn't mention your operating system, but if you are on GNU/Linux
you can use the compose key. Yes, I know it's not WITHIN LibreOffice,
but still…
Compose --. → – (en-dash)
Compose --- → — (em-dash)
The en-dash is usually created automatically by the auto correction
functionality, for example ”this - that” is automatically converted to
”this – that”. I'm not sure about the em-dash though.
You can easily create new abbreviations for auto correct, for example
making ” —” out of ” --- ” and so on.
Best regards
Johnny Rosenberg
ジョニー・ローゼンバーグ
Regina wrote:
They are usually written via AutoCorrect. The simple hyphen is replaced
with the en-dash or em-dash when the following word is finished . . .
That is _not_ a good idea. The hyphen, en rule and em rule (dash) are
distinct characters with distinct uses in conventional typography and
typesetting. Their correct use cannot be predicted by context, nor are
they interchangeable.
You need to find out where these characters are in the character set you
are using. This depends on your operating system, your language, and
your keyboard layout.
As Johnny pointed out, they can be entered with the compose key. If you
use them so often that even this is too cumbersome you can customise
your keyboard layout, so that (for example) compose-hyphen gets you the
en rule and shift-compose-hyphen gets you the dash (em rule). If you
want to do this I will help you (but only if you use GNU/Linux!).
You could, as Johnny suggests, create your own auto-correct sequences,
but personally I would avoid all such contrivances. Auto-correct is
_not_ your friend.
Hi Séamas,
Séamas Ó Brógáin schrieb:
Regina wrote:
They are usually written via AutoCorrect. The simple hyphen is replaced
with the en-dash or em-dash when the following word is finished . . .That is _not_ a good idea. The hyphen, en rule and em rule (dash) are
distinct characters with distinct uses in conventional typography and
typesetting. Their correct use cannot be predicted by context, nor are
they interchangeable.
It seems you have not tried this feature. Please read the help, index AutoCorrect function > Options > Replace Dashes. (I know when to use the different kind of dashes in German. http://www.ooowiki.de/TextStriche)
You need to find out where these characters are in the character set you
are using. This depends on your operating system, your language, and
your keyboard layout.
Changing keyboard layout or using the operating system way to input these characters is cumbersome on Windows. Even simple copy&paste is more efficient. At least on Win98 and WinXP there is no build-in way to change keyboard layout, you have to look for external tools to tweak it. I have not examined Window 7, whether it gives better support.
You get the same trouble for typographical quote-signs, for mathematical signs and Greek characters.
As Johnny pointed out, they can be entered with the compose key. If you
use them so often that even this is too cumbersome you can customise
your keyboard layout, so that (for example) compose-hyphen gets you the
en rule and shift-compose-hyphen gets you the dash (em rule). If you
want to do this I will help you (but only if you use GNU/Linux!).
See above. Most users work on Windows.
Kind regards
Regina
Regina wrote:
They are usually written via AutoCorrect. The simple hyphen is replaced
with the en-dash or em-dash when the following word is finished . . .That is _not_ a good idea. The hyphen, en rule and em rule (dash) are
distinct characters with distinct uses in conventional typography and
typesetting. Their correct use cannot be predicted by context, nor are
they interchangeable.
Agreed; why using auto-correct feature of LO is _not_ wanted.
You need to find out where these characters are in the character set you
are using. This depends on your operating system, your language, and
your keyboard layout.
After a quick search, seems that xorg.conf file needs to be found and
edited for a computer using xfce dvorak English keyboard.
As Johnny pointed out, they can be entered with the compose key. If you
use them so often that even this is too cumbersome you can customise
your keyboard layout, so that (for example) compose-hyphen gets you the
en rule and shift-compose-hyphen gets you the dash (em rule). If you
want to do this I will help you (but only if you use GNU/Linux!).
Thanks for the offer, but for now, will use 'charmap' and after much
repetition remember to use the unicode value! 
This does seem to be a weakness with the dialogue window 'insert
special character'. It does not show a definition of each character
that may be selected from the particular character set. For example in
'charmap' the character 'small ligature ae' (æ) is described in the
dialogue window with the unicode value, yet in LO, only the unicode
value is shown.
/snip/
As Johnny pointed out, they can be entered with the compose key. If you
use them so often that even this is too cumbersome you can customise
your keyboard layout, so that (for example) compose-hyphen gets you the
en rule and shift-compose-hyphen gets you the dash (em rule). If you
want to do this I will help you (but only if you use GNU/Linux!)./snip/
Please tell me what keystrokes produce the m-dash and n-dash using
the compose key. I don't remember seeing these in compose-key
tables. (I do use compose to get foreign characters, money symbols,
fractions, etc.) US standard keyboard with compose added--rt-ctrl.
--doug
Doug:
Using the compose key, the default settings are:
dash (em rule) ---
en rule: --.
Regina wrote:
They are usually written via AutoCorrect. The simple hyphen is replaced
with the en-dash or em-dash when the following word is finished . . .That is _not_ a good idea. The hyphen, en rule and em rule (dash) are
distinct characters with distinct uses in conventional typography and
typesetting. Their correct use cannot be predicted by context, nor are
they interchangeable.You need to find out where these characters are in the character set you
are using. This depends on your operating system, your language, and
your keyboard layout.As Johnny pointed out, they can be entered with the compose key. If you
use them so often that even this is too cumbersome you can customise
your keyboard layout,
That's actually what I did (called ”Sweden Johnny Rosenberg”,
available on my computers only…), but I didn't mention it because I
thought it could be a bit tricky…
I have the en-dash at AltGr+- and the em-dash at AltGr+Shift+-. I also
did a lot of other modification, like removed all my numbers from the
first row (I already have them on the num pad to the right – why have
them at more than one place?) and moved some Shift+number combinations
so I don't need Shift for characters like ”!#%&/” and so on. I even
made labels to put on my keys, but most of them was worn out after a
couple of weeks of typing…
To change the layout (or rather add a new one in this case), you need
to fiddle with three files (at least in Ubuntu):
/usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/evdev.lst, /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/evdev.xml
and /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/<the file representing your language>,
more on that another time…
Ok, this was a bit off topic…
Kind regards
Johnny Rosenberg
ジョニー・ローゼンバーグ
Am 16.04.2012 22:36, Séamas Ó Brógáin wrote:
Regina wrote:
They are usually written via AutoCorrect. The simple hyphen is replaced
with the en-dash or em-dash when the following word is finished . . .That is _not_ a good idea. The hyphen, en rule and em rule (dash) are
distinct characters with distinct uses in conventional typography and
typesetting. Their correct use cannot be predicted by context, nor are
they interchangeable.
There is AutoCorrect, there is AutoText (F3 and Ctrl+F3) and there is a most simple macro:
REM ***** BASIC *****
sub Insert_Em_Dash()
REM the quoted string is one em-dash
insertChar "—"
REM same with decimal:
' insertChar Chr(8212)
REM same with a hex number:
'insertChar Chr(cInt("&H2014"))
end sub
sub Insert_En_Dash()
insertChar Chr(cInt("&H2013"))
end sub
sub Insert_Figure_Dash()
insertChar Chr(cInt("&H2012"))
end sub
sub insertChar(s$)
dim document as object
dim dispatcher as object
document = ThisComponent.CurrentController.Frame
dispatcher = createUnoService("com.sun.star.frame.DispatchHelper")
dim args1(0) as new com.sun.star.beans.PropertyValue
args1(0).Name = "Text"
args1(0).Value = s
dispatcher.executeDispatch(document, ".uno:InsertText", "", 0, args1())
end sub
Hi Johnny;
Out of curiosity, what is AltGr+ ? Alt is of course the "Alt" key on the
keyboard but which key is Gr? My keyboard (an old IBM windows model) doesn't
have such a key.
Thanks, Tom
Hi
AltGr is the Alt key on the right of the space-bar. You probably just haven't noticed the Gr bit before.
Regards from
Tom
How do you do that if your system (openSuSE 12.1) only allows two (2) key
composition?
Thanks, Tom
Tom wrote:
How do you do that if your system (openSuSE 12.1) only allows two (2) key
composition?
I didn’t think there was such a restriction. I have a custom compose
list (on Ubuntu), and I just created a three-key combination, and it
works.
Is this something unique to SUSE (which seems unlikely), or is there
something else wrong? Do your two-key combinations work?
I saw that someone already answered, but I'll reply anyway.
The ”+” does only mean that the key is hold. So Alt+Shift+x means that
Alt, Shift and x is pressed simultaneously, or at least that no key is
released before the other keys is pressed.
The compose key doesn't work that way, therefore no ”+” sign: ”Compose
--.” means ”hit the Compose key, release it, then type --.”.
About the AltGr key, I don't think it exists on standard US keyboards,
for example. Many other languages though, use some characters that are
not on a regular US keyboard, like in my case, Swedish.
We have three extra letters in our alphabet: A-Z, then ÅÄÖ and the
same for lower case (a-z, åäö). That means that there are not enough
keys for everything, so characters like ”{[]}\|” are omitted, or at
least replaced by our Swedish characters. We need them sometimes
anyway though, so they are placed on other keys and we can type them
by using the AltGr key, for example AltGr+8 for ”[” and AltGr+9 for
”]”. On the other hand, at least with Swedish keyboards, they have no
right Alt key, only one to the left, so I guess AltGr is simply the
right Alt key. It's placed immediately to the right of the space key,
at least on my keyboard.
Kind regards
Johnny Rosenberg
ジョニー・ローゼンバーグ
I have had OpenSUSE some years back (I think it was 11.3 or
something), but unfortunately I didn't test this…
However, this page doesn't say anything about that the compose key
behaviour is depending on your GNU/Linux-distribution, so I thought
this was true for all of them.
Maybe it's a Gnome thing and you have the KDE version of OpenSUSE?
Well, I don't think so, but I use Gnome only, so I don't know.
Best regards
Johnny Rosenberg
ジョニー・ローゼンバーグ
Doug:
Using the compose key, the default settings are:
dash (em rule) ---
en rule: --.How do you do that if your system (openSuSE 12.1) only allows two (2) key
composition?Thanks, Tom
I have had OpenSUSE some years back (I think it was 11.3 or
something), but unfortunately I didn't test this…
However, this page doesn't say anything about that the compose key
behaviour is depending on your GNU/Linux-distribution, so I thought
this was true for all of them.
Forgot to include the link to ”this page”… sorry… 
Here it is:
http://www.hermit.org/Linux/ComposeKeys.html
Even Micro$oft Windoze has keyboards using the AltGr.
For a list of available keyboard layouts in Windoze:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/goglobal/bb964651
An example of a U.S. English (US-International) keyboard layout which
uses the AltGr:
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/msdn/goglobal/keyboards/kbdusx.html
On my main PC (Linux), I use the English-International keyboard as my
default layout because a lot of my typing uses words in French,
German, and other languages. It is way easier than having to open
Character Map, find the desired character, copy it, and paste. AFAIK,
all Linux flavours and all Windoze versions have the ability to switch
between keyboard layouts.
<<<<< snip >>>>>
Hi Johnny 
The problem with the above is that in openSuSE the compose key only allows two
(2) keystroke combinations, not three (3). "Compose -./--" do not insert
anything. To me, this is just a point of education as I don't use dash m/n in
my writing. Just trying to learn a bit.
Thanks for any further explanation.
Tom
<<<<< snip >>>>>
Hi Johnny
The problem with the above is that in openSuSE the compose key only allows two
(2) keystroke combinations, not three (3). "Compose -./--" do not insert
anything. To me, this is just a point of education as I don't use dash m/n in
my writing. Just trying to learn a bit.
Thanks for any further explanation.
Tom
After some trial and error I find that three key combinations work in some
applications but not in others. They do work in LO but not when immediately
adjacent. Thanks for your help.
Tom