Hard Hyphens In Final Draft

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  • #16
    Just in case this is still an issue. In FD 12 all you have to do is press OPTION and SHIFT at the same time that you press the hyphen key to get an actual emdash. Press it once and you get a nice dash. Press it twice and you get a longer dash -- which is what I prefer. No need to create macros. Simple.

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    • #17
      Originally posted by kaja View Post
      Just in case this is still an issue. In FD 12 all you have to do is press OPTION and SHIFT at the same time that you press the hyphen key to get an actual emdash. Press it once and you get a nice dash. Press it twice and you get a longer dash -- which is what I prefer. No need to create macros. Simple.
      What you said is confusing, and I will not try to parse it out for everyone.

      Regardless of how you go about making these glyphs (as they are called), people need to understand the right terminology.

      Hyphen It is better not to use the word dash to refer to a hyphen, although you will see this in documentation sometimes. A hyphen is a short stroke used to join two words, as in self-educated. The hyphen is the keyboard character just to the right of the '9' and '0' keys. Some computer programs will break hyphenated words, like self-educated, after the hyphen if the word falls at the end of a line and has run out of space on the line. You can avoid this break, if you want, by using a 'hard hyphen' (a nonbreaking hyphen). In the Windows OS the hard hyphen is typically made with Ctrl+Shift+hyphen. In general, you will not need to use hard hyphens in a screenplay. Be aware, also, that some fonts may not have a nonbreaking hyphen, which is a separate character from the ordinary hyphen (it looks the same, but it has a different code number).

      Dash The word encompasses several kinds of true dashes, not hyphens. I will only discuss two types, below.

      Em dash The em dash is a stroke that is about as wide as the capital letter M in a given font. It looks like this — in a sentence. Em dashes generally show a break or interruption in a sentence, or a change of direction in a sentence. In the Windows OS you can make a an em dash by holding down the left Alt key and typing in the code 0151 on the Numeric keypad (NumLock must be on). This does not work without the Numeric keypad, which laptops frequently lack.

      A perennial question (or argument) is whether to put a space before and after the dash. I do, but most people argue not to do so. I will contend that using spaces is the better option in a screenplay because the screenplay is in a monospaced font, and because dialogue usually has a very narrow column (only 35 characters in FinalDraft format). In such a situation you might have a long word, then an em dash, and then another long word. If you have no spaces around the em dash, you might end up with "a huge madeuplongword—anotherbigword", and the whole thing would wrap like this:
      Code:
      a huge
      madeuplongword—anotherbigword
      I have not actually tried this, so I do not know that it would happen, but it might.

      The em dash is often (usually?) represented in manuscripts with two hyphens --, because that is all that you could do in the typewriter era. If you choose to use two hyphens, I would still advise putting a space before and after the -- group. I do not remember for sure, but I think I remember that years ago FinalDraft sometimes split the -- group between the two hyphens if the line came to an end at that point.

      Some people also use a single hyphen for an em dash, but with a space before and after. I see nothing wrong with this, since the hyphen is long stroke in Courier anyway. But if you do this, make sure to use the spaces. Unfortunately, I see scripts with just a hyphen for a dash, and no spaces, and it looks awful.

      En dash It is a stroke about the same width as the letter N of a font. It is not as wide as an em dash. So when do you use it? Technically, you use it for a range of numbers, like "pages 4–10", or to join two words to a following word, like "New York–trained actor". Never use spaces before or after the en dash. Even though I am usually a perfectionist about these matters, I see no reason to try to get people to use an en dash in a screenplay. In some Courier fonts you really cannot tell much if any difference between the em and en dashes anyway.

      In the Windows OS you can make an en dash on the Numeric keypad, with the code 0150. Of course, you hold down the left Alt key.

      If you do not have a Numeric keypad (I do not on this old laptop), you can use some kind of software utility in its place. I have not yet found a utility that was intuitive and efficient. The best workaround is to use a hyphen (with spaces) or two hyphens (with spaces) and then later run a Find-Replace in your screenwriting program to replace these with the em dash. Forget the en dash.

      I apologize for the length of this discussion. I know that most people really do not give a crap anyway. 🙁

      "The fact that you have seen professionals write poorly is no reason for you to imitate them." - ComicBent.

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      • #18
        Not sure how it's confusing. People using Final Draft simply weren't able to go from this: -- to this: – or to this: ––. And I showed them how. You're getting into the whys and wherefores but that wasn't their issue...or mine.

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        • #19
          Having said that, maybe it's confusing if you don't have a Mac. Mine is an iMac so maybe it's different for other computers. Still, even with my Mac, I used to be able to simply press OPTION and then the hyphen to get a dash but in Final Draft 12 that no longer worked so I just did a trial and error 'thing' and found my solution and the solution for anyone who uses a Mac. But even if you don't, there's probably a similar simple solution. Have a great writing day, folks!

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