How to make em dash an easy quick character

External Since: Feb 17, 2005 Posts: 108

Well, it's not just a matter of personal preference. In the United States
at least, any print book or magazine uses the em dash as a standard
punctuation. It is used very frequently. That is why it is maddening that
it is not a standard character with its own key.

But Gary Terhune and a couple of others here have said they support my idea
for a request to Microsoft to address this, and I will write up some letter
soon.

"J. P. Gilliver" <john.gilliver.DeleteThis@baesystems.com> wrote in message
news:454668bf$1_1@glkas0286.greenlnk.net...
> "Larry" <larry328NOSPAM.DeleteThis@att.net> wrote in message
> news:%23haljo7%23GHA.4196@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> > Except, for some reason, as we discussed before, the em dashes in a news
> > message are being changed into hyphens when I send them. (This only
> > happens
> > in unformatted plain text news messages.)
> []
> Plain text doesn't include any character beyond 127 (and 127 is the delete
> character, the proper one that is). Some systems may allow characters
beyond
> that to pass through, but there's no guarantee that they will be displayed
> on someone else's machine as the same character: beyond 127, at least in
> "plain text", there is no standard. There is some uniformity if your
message
> system specifies a certain extended character set - _if_ that character
set
> is implemented at the remote end; it's unwise to assume that for usenet,
> though.
>
> The em dash (which I've _never_ felt the need for - but horses for
courses!)
> is fine in a controlled environment, where you know everyone is using the
> same software, or at least the same character sets and 8-bit encoding.
> Otherwise, it joins the pound sign, all the accented/umlauted letters, and
> so on, in being fragile.
>
>

External Since: Mar 17, 2004 Posts: 2768

The issue is *much* larger than just Microsoft. If you're going to start a
campaign, please include Apple and IBM, at *least*, and preferably blanket
the entire industry.

--

Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
http://grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm
http://grystmill.com/articles/security.htm

"Larry" <larry328NOSPAM.DeleteThis@att.net> wrote in message
news:OZqePFR$GHA.4708@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> Well, it's not just a matter of personal preference. In the United States
> at least, any print book or magazine uses the em dash as a standard
> punctuation. It is used very frequently. That is why it is maddening
> that
> it is not a standard character with its own key.
>
> But Gary Terhune and a couple of others here have said they support my
> idea
> for a request to Microsoft to address this, and I will write up some
> letter
> soon.
>
>
> "J. P. Gilliver" <john.gilliver.DeleteThis@baesystems.com> wrote in message
> news:454668bf$1_1@glkas0286.greenlnk.net...
>> "Larry" <larry328NOSPAM.DeleteThis@att.net> wrote in message
>> news:%23haljo7%23GHA.4196@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>> > Except, for some reason, as we discussed before, the em dashes in a
>> > news
>> > message are being changed into hyphens when I send them. (This only
>> > happens
>> > in unformatted plain text news messages.)
>> []
>> Plain text doesn't include any character beyond 127 (and 127 is the
>> delete
>> character, the proper one that is). Some systems may allow characters
> beyond
>> that to pass through, but there's no guarantee that they will be
>> displayed
>> on someone else's machine as the same character: beyond 127, at least in
>> "plain text", there is no standard. There is some uniformity if your
> message
>> system specifies a certain extended character set - _if_ that character
> set
>> is implemented at the remote end; it's unwise to assume that for usenet,
>> though.
>>
>> The em dash (which I've _never_ felt the need for - but horses for
> courses!)
>> is fine in a controlled environment, where you know everyone is using the
>> same software, or at least the same character sets and 8-bit encoding.
>> Otherwise, it joins the pound sign, all the accented/umlauted letters,
>> and
>> so on, in being fragile.
>>
>>
>