Posted by Dylan Parry on 10/25/07 19:54

Els wrote:
> Dylan Parry wrote:
>
>> I've been experimenting with using various different types of dash,
>> hyphens and other typographical symbols that aren't present on the
>> keyboard. One thing I came across was an inconsistency in the way
>> that Internet Explorer 7 displays the hyphen character (not the
>> hyphen-minus, but a proper hyphen). FWIW, IE6 doesn't appear to
>> display the character at all.
>
> Which one on my keyboard is the minus and which one is the proper
> hyphen?

None. You can't get a proper hyphen or minus sign without using
character map or holding down the alt and pressing the right number
sequence, which I can't seem to find :s

> http://locusmeus.com/temp/hyphen.gif
>
> It is higher, but not exactly 'right at the top' I think. Are you
> seeing it differently?

Yeah, looks like we're all seeing different things.

> I've never before noticed any hyphens not displaying though.
> Different keyboard? How about just encoding them so they are –
> entities?

Ah, but – isn't a hyphen, it's an EN Dash, which is used for an
entirely different set of purposes ;)

> I guess I'm using minus-hyphens then? hyphen next to the 0 key on my
> keyboard: - hyphen above the + on my numeric pad: - Are they real
> hyphens, or minuses?

Yep, the hyphen-minus is the one next to the + key. They are neither a
hyphen, nor a minus, but both and neither :) They were originally
created as a character that could be used to represent both due to the
lack of keys on a typewriter.

Clever programs like Word etc are capable of interpreting which sort of
dash or hyphen you need depending on the context, and will replace them
in the same way as they do with quotation marks.

--
Dylan Parry
http://electricfreedom.org | http://webpageworkshop.co.uk

The opinions stated above are not necessarily representative of
those of my cats. All opinions expressed are entirely your own.

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