Change -- to em dash does not work

ElFundidor · February 27, 2022, 10:09pm

In Libre office 6.4.7.2 I cannot get two hyphens and a space to make an em dash. It worked well in version 5. I go to Tools/Auto Correct/Auto Correct Options, and then enter the desired change and press OK, but nothing changes. It does not work. I still get --.

Richard

Zizi64 · February 27, 2022, 10:25pm

Which language did you set the replacement code for, and which language are you using when the funcion not work?

ElFundidor · February 27, 2022, 11:48pm

English US for both

mikekaganski · February 28, 2022, 2:58pm

Likely related: tdf#142938 (but the change in it is in 7.3)

bcronald · February 28, 2022, 1:00pm

In a test or blank document, insert the em-dash by going to menu Insert >> Special Character… (Subset: General Punctuation)
Select this character in the document and copy to clipboard (ctrl+c)
Open AutoCorrect dialog (menu Tools>>AutoCorrect>>AutoCorrect Options…)
Under the Replace tab, type two dashes in the Replace text box and paste from clipboard into the With text box.
Press the New button. Your entry will now be moved into the text area below the Replace and With text boxes.
Now click OK
Hope this should work.

ElFundidor · March 10, 2022, 12:12am

That worked. Also :three hyphens: works.

Thank you all of you for your answers.

Richard

Ed-Itter · December 5, 2024, 11:37am

Works in v 24.8.3.2. Thanks!

anon87010807 · February 27, 2022, 10:22pm

Confirmed in version 7.2.5.2. Fixed that by adding the rule to replace two hyphens by an em dash.

ElFundidor · February 28, 2022, 12:21am

I upgraded to 7.3.0.3 and it still does not work. Should I go back to version 4 or 5? I don’t need a lot of fancy stuff. I am a writer. I just need a simple word processor that works.

Richard

EarnestAl · February 28, 2022, 4:46am

Help for 7.3 AutoCorrect Options and I think Help for 6.4, says:

Text that you type:	Result that you get:
`A -- B (A, space, minus, minus, space, B)`	`A – B (A, space, en-dash, space, B)`
`A--B (A, minus, minus, B)`	`A—B (A, em-dash, B)`

Probably best for consistency to use 3 dashes to make em dash in AutoCorrect (3 dashes works on this site). Open AutoCorrect Options in Replace field enter ---, in With field enter — then click New, then click OK

Radish · February 28, 2022, 12:23pm

In Writer 7.2.5.2 by default there are settings in AutoCorrect that do the following:

:–: (in words, ColonHyphenHyphenColon produces an en-dash.)
:—: (in words, ColonHyphenHyphenHyphenColon produces an em-dash.)

For the em-dash this is pretty good as you can have the em-dash with no space before and after the em-dash. Or you can easily place the em-dash with a space before and after the em-dash. (Different publishers seem to have different conventions on how they like placement of em-dashes.)

In any case, I found this way of doing it so useful that I wrote an AutoHotkey script that gives me the same functionality in any word-processor that I use on my system. In this way I only have to remember one way of doing things for all word-processors on my system.