What the heck is an en dash?

[Dan Jones]

And where is it on my keyboard? Is it really a thing? And if so, is it really that big of a deal?

Or is it called an em dash?

[Feros]

There are three prominent dashes. The hyphen is the shortest and is used in connecting words and has its own key.

The en-dash is a little longer and can usually be entered by holding down the alt and typing 0150 out in numbers like so (–). It is usually used as a negative sign thusly: –1 to hit. There are other uses, but they escape me at the moment.

The em-dash is the longest and is used to denote a separate thought within a sentence—somewhat like parentheses and comma splices—so that it can be emphasized or clear up certain details. You get it by holding down the alt and typing 0151 out in numbers like so (—).

[Feros]

As to it being a big deal, it is for publishers as the length of that dash defines what it does and how it appears in print.

[Mikko Kallio]

What Feros said. If you leave in a lot of hyphens where they don't belong, it's just as much work for the developer to check and replace them with the correct dashes as changing "alot" to "a lot", changing Climb to climb (or vice versa, depending on where it appears), or adding in the bold typeface (or removing it from every colon).

Just because it's less conspicuous doesn't mean it's less important. In fact, I'd argue that some of the less conspicuous mistakes are actually worse because it's more difficult to notice them. (Though I'm fairly sure devs run a search for hyphens every time they start working on a text.)

It's one of the things freelancers are expected to learn to use. Just as important as knowing whether to use "afterward" or "afterwards", "Orc" or "Orcish", empowered magic missile or empowered magic missile, ... the list goes on. For miles.

While it's certainly one of the least mistakes, it's really up to you to decide if you want the devs (or judges) to think "Wow, this guy got even the dashes right" or "We understand, it's a common newb mistake".

There are a few more uses for the en dash and em dash than those that Feros mentioned, I can write a more detailed post about it if you wish.

[Scott LaBarge]

Mikko, I for one would like to see the full account, though it's giving me flashbacks to learning how to use diacritical marks in Ancient Greek. (Shudder).

[Dan Jones]

Were they mentioned in the style guide and example template they provided? I don't remember them from other years' contests.

[Adam Daigle]

Mikko Kallio wrote:

What Feros said. If you leave in a lot of hyphens where they don't belong, it's just as much work for the developer to check and replace them with the correct dashes as changing "alot" to "a lot", changing Climb to climb (or vice versa, depending on where it appears), or adding in the bold typeface (or removing it from every colon).

Just because it's less conspicuous doesn't mean it's less important. In fact, I'd argue that some of the less conspicuous mistakes are actually worse because it's more difficult to notice them. (Though I'm fairly sure devs run a search for hyphens every time they start working on a text.)

It's one of the things freelancers are expected to learn to use. Just as important as knowing whether to use "afterward" or "afterwards", "Orc" or "Orcish", empowered magic missile or empowered magic missile, ... the list goes on. For miles.

While it's certainly one of the least mistakes, it's really up to you to decide if you want the devs (or judges) to think "Wow, this guy got even the dashes right" or "We understand, it's a common newb mistake".

There are a few more uses for the en dash and em dash than those that Feros mentioned, I can write a more detailed post about it if you wish.

And this is why I've contracted Mikko for a handful of monsters since his showing in last year's RPG Superstar.

[Garrett Guillotte]

A discussion about dashes! Oh boy.

Hyphens are just hyphens. They aren't dashes. Their typographical function is to join words and syllables, like in broken lines (abso-
lutely) and prefixes (pre-emptive).

There's three primary dash types:

1. The shortest common dash is the figure dash ‒. It's usually the width of a number and is usually used to join groups of numbers, like phone numbers (555‒1212). Not for ranges, and not as a minus sign. As far as I can tell, Paizo does not use these. Some fonts doesn't even have these, in which case you use an en dash or a minus sign.

2. Next up is the en dash –. It's called an en dash because it's sometimes the width of a capital N, though usually it's half the width of an em dash. Can't tell the difference between the figure dash and the en dash? Oh boy are you going to love the rest of this post. In most style guides, en dashes are used to join ranges, like 4–6 goblins or 4610–4615 AR. They are not minus signs except in Paizo land, where every minus sign in a Paizo product (–4 Wisdom) is supposed to be an en dash.* Paizo also uses them to join things like PFS seasons and scenario numbers, like #7–01: Aroden Was Dead the Whole Time.

3. Next up is the em dash —. It's usually the width of a capital M, which should be pretty wide. Em dashes are usually used to join or set off phrases for emphasis—sort of like this. Most styles don't surround em dashes with spaces, instead smashing them up against the text like you would with other dashes. Paizo uses em dashes this way, though sparingly. Sometimes, em dashes lead off the source of a quote, like

Quote:

"Aroden slipped in the bath. That's how he died. Totally canon."

—James Jacobs

But formally, that should be a quotation dash (―) and I can already tell you're losing patience with me. It's ok! I can take it.

In dialogue, em dashes also often signify someone getting cut off.

Quote:

"I said it's canon, you can't stop meeeee—"

Erik Mona shoved James off the cliff, then wiped his hands of the matter.

Em dashes are not two hyphens duct-taped together, though they are how Word—among other programs—autocorrects two hyphens.

So that's dashes! But wait, there's more...

Minus signs are typographically unique from dashes and hyphens. There's the hyphen-minus (-4 Strength), which is a hyphen-sized minus sign; visually, the only difference is the minus sign's height, which should be level with the crossbar of a plus sign. Then there's the proper minus sign (−4 Strength), which should be as wide as a plus sign. And then a few fonts have a full-width hyphen-minus (－4 Strength) and don't even go there. Paizo doesn't use these, ever.

There's also non-breaking hyphens, which are sometimes used when a hyphen is necessary but the word shouldn't break across a line. Very rarely, these hyphens also look a little different from a standard hyphen. I have no idea why. Typography is weird.

Do you want to hear about the swung dash (⁓)? No, you don't.

⁓the end⁓

* Accessibility mini-rant:

The use of en dashes in place of minus signs drives people who use screen readers up the wall, because most screen readers don't read en dashes aloud. Acrobat doesn't read them at all, because obviously, they're dashes. Do you read dashes aloud when you're reading text? No, nobody does. That's one reason why typographical minus signs exist.

[Scott LaBarge]

Bless you, Garrett Guillotte, for making dashes fun. Who knew?

This is just the sort of thing that makes my little pedant's heart quicken.

[Garrett Guillotte]

Dan Jones wrote:

Were they mentioned in the style guide and example template they provided? I don't remember them from other years' contests.

Probably not. I'd be really surprised if a dash/hyphen thing was a serious problem in Superstar.

Paizo doesn't publish their style guide, but in general I believe the Chicago Manual of Style is the fallback.

Which reminds me, there's a whole bunch of rules about when to hyphenate "non-" and did you know it's always "-aligned" like good-aligned and ok you're all going away, that's fine, later

[Garrett Guillotte]

For way more detail, much of it not relevant to Superstar or outright contradicted by Paizo style but still fun* to read, Wikipedia is a pretty thorough place to start.

For a pleasant discussion of similar typographic rules and conventions, Smashing Magazine has a dependable old article.

*using a limited definition for "fun"

[Adam Daigle]

Garrett Guillotte wrote:

A bunch of accurate information.

Thank you! I was writing something up, but decided to refresh while I was halfway through it and saw that your post not only was doing the same thing, but did it SO MUCH BETTER. Thanks, Garrett!

[Adam Daigle]

Dan Jones wrote:

Were they mentioned in the style guide and example template they provided? I don't remember them from other years' contests.

While I did note style elements in my comments, I didn't ding any submission for things that I didn't expect them to know. Not everyone knows our styles, but some people that have been reading and paying attention for a while have picked up on some of them or they know Chicago or AP or some other style guide that we closely adhere to (Garrett is correct that we hew closely to Chicago in most instances).

I worried that I was being too technical in my comments, but I intended those comments to be helpful for not only the contestants going forward, but for everyone who was interested in the writing, designing, developing, and editing process.

[Mikko Kallio]

Dan Jones wrote:

Were they mentioned in the style guide and example template they provided? I don't remember them from other years' contests.

The round 3 template and rules cannot possibly cover everything because there are thousands of details that a monster designer should know. Generally speaking, if Paizo uses a specific style or term in their products, you should also use it if you're working for Paizo. In that sense, it's nothing new.

However, in the previous years, the judges haven't commented on it a lot. Which is understandable as it really is one of the least mistakes. However, as you've seen, a lot of things have changed this year. Besides giving the recommendations, in my opinion, the judges' job is also to educate potential freelancers. After all, it's in Paizo's interests to share information that makes the devs' job easier in the long run.

The purpose of the template, however, is not to teach how Paizo formats their stat blocks; that information is already available in Paizo's bestiaries. Instead, its purpose is to show how you should format your stat block in RPG Superstar. In their products, they use a number of styles that are not possible to use on the messageboards, such as indented paragraphs, separate style definitions for stat block lines, and so on. The template helps you understand the differences between Paizo's published products and RPG Superstar. It also helps you use the messageboard tags for bolding, italics, and other styles.

[Mikko Kallio]

Adam Daigle wrote:

Garrett Guillotte wrote:

A bunch of accurate information.

Thank you! I was writing something up, but decided to refresh while I was halfway through it and saw that your post not only was doing the same thing, but did it SO MUCH BETTER. Thanks, Garrett!

Haha, same here, I already had my post nearly finished but decided to refresh. Thanks, GG! Mr. Dash-Fu. ;-)

[Mark Seifter]

Sean definitely presented all the dashes in previous years. I used his thread on dashes as a mini style guide for a while (you can find it too with the search feature!)

[Garrett Guillotte]

Mark Seifter wrote:

Sean definitely presented all the dashes in previous years. I used his thread on dashes as a mini style guide for a while (you can find it too with the search feature!)

He did, but in the Advice boards, not the Superstar boards. Cheapy reposted it ahead of RPGSS 2013 in the Superstar General Discussion board.

[Lady Firedove]

Yep! He sure did! I actually remember being enlightened by that. Good memories. :)

(Thanks, Garrett and judges, for the educational moment!)

[R D Ramsey]

So let me ask, in all good faith...

Does it make a difference to readers of the published materials?

And if not, why bother?

[Garrett Guillotte]

R D Ramsey wrote:

So let me ask, in all good faith...

Does it make a difference to readers of the published materials?

Yes, particularly in print output but increasingly in high-resolution digital output as well. To borrow one of Sean's examples, a hyphen tends to blend into an adjacent 4, while a minus sign shouldn't line up with the 4's crossbar and even an en dash should be long enough to stand out as a minus sign at a glance. Using two dashes instead of an em dash can insert a disruptive little bit of space into the line and is a pain to typeset consistently near line edges.

It's typographical polish that provides a professional look and improves readability when consistently applied, just like the rest of a publication's style guidelines. Paizo or a 3PP could crank something out that ignores or inconsistently applies dash styles, just like they could crank out something that inconsistently organizes statblocks or changes tense or voice between feats. These things are relatively small potatoes content-wise—perfect dash use won't fix bad writing—but they also help the reader parse the content easier and help establish a cohesive visual identity across a product line.

Typography is also layout's responsibility, which also makes it the editor's responsibility since they have to turn over clean copy to avoid production delays, and woe unto the freelance writer who gives their editor unnecessary, avoidable work.

[Mikko Kallio]

I very much agree with GG.

Why ignore something that's easy to do?

Anyway, none of us judges penalized the contestants for not knowing this stuff. The few contestants that got flak from me for bad formatting had much more serious formatting issues than just hyphens.

However, now that we've discussed the subject pretty extensively, everyone in the Top 16 (and soon, the Top 8) should know this stuff. If someone in the Top 8 chooses to ignore our advice, I'll be very surprised.

[R Pickard]

R D Ramsey wrote:

So let me ask, in all good faith...

Does it make a difference to readers of the published materials?

And if not, why bother?

Makes a difference to me. Now, I'm not a typical reader in that I also do freelance editing so I often notice "wrong" dash usage and find it distracting, but it shows me a given publisher has high production standards and is ensuring easiest readability for their readers. The truth is many readers might not actively notice the differences, but yet their eyes will still scan the pages differently if punctuation choices are off (as Garrett elaborated upon).

Garrett, thanks for pointing out the issue with minus signs vs en-dashes in screen readers (everybody should read that spoiler)... I never knew that, and I have two players who use JAWS screen reading software and that's actually important to know as sometimes I mail them statblocks/character sheets.

[Owen K. C. Stephens]

There are a ton of things to get "right" for Pathfinder formatting and writing, beyond good ideas, good rules, and good prose. Capitalizing feats, skills, and traits (but not spells, races, or classes), using serial commas, italicizing magic items and spells (but not class features, unless the feature is named for a magic item or spell), and so on.

A good freelancer learns these things after we point them out.
A great freelancer looks at what we have done before, and learns most of it before turning things over.

Some of this falls into the category of wanting to make sure anyone who wins this knows what it takes to be a great freelancer.

[Jensen Toperzer]

Feros wrote:

There are three prominent dashes. The hyphen is the shortest and is used in connecting words and has its own key.

The en-dash is a little longer and can usually be entered by holding down the alt and typing 0150 out in numbers like so (–). It is usually used as a negative sign thusly: –1 to hit. There are other uses, but they escape me at the moment.

The em-dash is the longest and is used to denote a separate thought within a sentence—somewhat like parentheses and comma splices—so that it can be emphasized or clear up certain details. You get it by holding down the alt and typing 0151 out in numbers like so (—).

On a Macintosh, you use "Option" + "-" for the en-dash, and "Option" + "Shift" + "-"

There's even a wiki page :D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_make_dashes

Another tip: If you have the money and are DEAD SERIOUS about freelancing, I HIGHLY suggest subscribing to the Chicago Manual of Style online. It's only $35 / year. CMS is THE guide for little grammatical and typographical things like en and em dashes; I believe Paizo's editorial style is based on it. Some specific types of publication use different style guides (newspapers use the Associated Press stylebook, most scientific publications have their own specific stylebooks) but CMS is the main one for the vast majority of general writing you'll encounter.

If you're really really super serious, it may be in your interests to take a quick copyediting course at a local community college or find an online class. Even if you're not planning on becoming a copyeditor, knowing how copyediting works can help you to police your own text for minor errors, and save the copyeditor on a lot of work later

... speaking of, I should get back to my current copyediting project.

*E* Oh wow, I hadn't noticed that Paizo uses the en-dash as a minus sign. I'm going to have to start doing that in my work for Adventure A Week.

[Jeff Heikkinen]

Sean Reynolds' monster advice PDF discusses some of this stuff, as well as a few other typographic and stylistic niceties.

[Lorathorn]

Where do we find this pdf?

[Garrett Guillotte]

Lorathorn wrote:

Where do we find this pdf?

$5 on Sean's Etsy store

[Lorathorn]

You can sell pdfs on etsy??

[Vic Wertz]

Garrett Guillotte wrote:

[stuff about minus signs]

One of the reasons Paizo doesn't use "proper" minus signs is that not all fonts implement them (especially the weird small-house artsy fonts some of our art department folks can't get enough of).

(There's a workaround of using one specific font for characters like that wherever it appears, but that can bite you very badly when somebody changes a style on a bit of text somewhere and, elsewhere, your minus sign quietly turns into a space or a box...)

[Lilith]

If you're on a Windows machine, en dash is Alt+0150 (on the numpad), while em dash is Alt+0151.

[Owen K. C. Stephens]

My Windows machine at home has .doc files called "minus," "en dash," and "em dash."
Each contains the character in question, and nothing else.
I often cut-and-past these, rather than type in the code. Because, for some reason, I find that easier.

[Garrett Guillotte]

R Pickard wrote:

Garrett, thanks for pointing out the issue with minus signs vs en-dashes in screen readers (everybody should read that spoiler)... I never knew that, and I have two players who use JAWS screen reading software and that's actually important to know as sometimes I mail them statblocks/character sheets.

Ugh, thanks for bringing up JAWS. JAWS can be very buggy about punctuation, even when you put the effort into using it with an eye toward accessibility. There's a really great post comparing how JAWS, NVDA, and VoiceOver parse punctuation over on the deque blog. (Ha, DeathQuaker, DQ, deque.) The post is a year old and updates resolved some of these problems since, but it's still enlightening.

The most relevant bits:

JAWS reads en and em dashes as "en dash" and "em dash", so –4 Strength is read aloud as "en dash four strength". But for unicode minus signs it still says "dash four strength", so you're not much better off.

NVDA doesn't read, or even pause for, en dashes; it reads minus signs, but mystifyingly it doesn't read plus or equals signs aloud. (–4 Strength reads as "minus four strength", but +4 Strength reads as "four Strength")

VoiceOver reads minus signs but doesn't read en or em dashes in text, and doesn't even pause for them unless they're set off by spaces on each side. (–4 Strength reads as "four strength")

NVDA's lead dev is in the comments describing why this is such a complex problem. Screen readers have to cover so many use cases (web pages, documents, arbitrary UI data) that to be fully contextually aware, they'd have to consume an inordinate amount of resources, and if they read everything, lots of stuff would be unusable.

I'm really curious about how Pathfinder content works for your players who use it.

Vic Wertz wrote:

(There's a workaround of using one specific font for characters like that wherever it appears, but that can bite you very badly when somebody changes a style on a bit of text somewhere and, elsewhere, your minus sign quietly turns into a space or a box...)

True; it's often hard to do consistently, especially since the differences are visually minute and enforcing them adds to the things to do (and can go wrong) at the tail end of production. Even then, the same fonts on the printer's end can be unpredictably different (cf. the infamous Buttery Knife ligature).

InDesign nerdery, writers move along:

GREP styles and find/replaces can help with minus signs, at least, by globally applying and/or automatically enforcing a different character style or font over only the minus signs without changing any other text properties. They can drag on performance, though. Preflight should also catch missing or substituted characters, but that's assuming the character is actually missing and not simply incorrect in the font, and again might fall over at the printer if there are font version differences.

Lilith wrote:

If you're on a Windows machine, en dash is Alt+0150 (on the numpad), while em dash is Alt+0151.

Worth noting: The numbers have to be typed with numlock on. If you're in Word, you can also use Ctrl+numpad - and Alt+Ctrl+numpad - for en and em dashes, respectively. InDesign (Preferences, Keyboard Shortcuts, Type Menu) and Word (Insert menu, Symbols dropdown, More Symbols...) let you customize keyboard shortcuts for dashes and other characters.

OS X supports them on the OS level in most Western keyboard layouts as ⌥ Opt+- and ⌥ Opt+Shift+-. On Windows, you can use use Microsoft's Keyboard Layout Creator to add your own global shortcuts.

In HTML, you can make them appear with – and —.

[Garrett Guillotte]

Owen K. C. Stephens wrote:

My Windows machine at home has .doc files called "minus," "en dash," and "em dash."

Each contains the character in question, and nothing else.
I often cut-and-past these, rather than type in the code. Because, for some reason, I find that easier.

I also do this for special characters on my numpad-less laptop, except with the Sticky Notes app pinned on top of all other windows. Sometimes the simple workarounds work best. :D

[Garrick Williams]

This was one of the things I learned from Sean K. Reynolds's advice PDFs. After I read it, I immediately went to my homebrew folder and did all the necessary replacements.

Many word processors will let you program them to automatically certain character combinations with special characters. I set my Google Docs to replace -- with – and -+- with —

[Eric Hindley]

I definitely built shortcuts in Word to make En and Em dashes faster for me. I like ctrl-alt-{minus sign} for one...

[Mikko Kallio]

Garrick Williams wrote:

This was one of the things I learned from Sean K. Reynolds's advice PDFs. After I read it, I immediately went to my homebrew folder and did all the necessary replacements.

Many word processors will let you program them to automatically certain character combinations with special characters. I set my Google Docs to replace -- with – and -+- with —

This is the kind of reaction a judge (or developer) likes to see when a contestant (or freelancer) learns something new. :-)

[Jensen Toperzer]

Vic Wertz wrote:

Garrett Guillotte wrote:

[stuff about minus signs]

One of the reasons Paizo doesn't use "proper" minus signs is that not all fonts implement them (especially the weird small-house artsy fonts some of our art department folks can't get enough of).

(There's a workaround of using one specific font for characters like that wherever it appears, but that can bite you very badly when somebody changes a style on a bit of text somewhere and, elsewhere, your minus sign quietly turns into a space or a box...)

If your guys are into ~quirky artsy fonts~ but you want them to get things that actually have gosh-darn character support, I highly suggest sending them to http://www.designcuts.com. They often have REALLY good deals not just on fonts but on other design elements (textures, stock art, etc), and often have freebies for download. I got a bunch of really nice fonts from them that have full character support, which has been a total lifesaver for some of the layout projects I've been doing.

*e* Also, Garrett, you are seriously saving my butt right now on some font issues I've been having at the 3pp I work for.

Now that I know this, I think for some of the really super indie places I work, we could actually create screen-reader friendly editions of things :\a Since we have the luxury of not being on quite as tight a schedule as some of the bigger companies. I mean, someone using a screen reader might not care if the font is just straight up TNR or Futura (GOD I LOVE FUTURA, GOD BLESS TSR FOR MAKING EVERYTHING THEY DID IN YE OLDE DAYS IN FUTURA) so long as the reader interprets it correctly...

[David Schwartz]

I set up two-key macros for en-dash, em-dash, and superscript. Such a time saver.

[Garrett Guillotte]

Wanted to slip back in to confirm that on Windows, the Keyboard Layout Creator works like a charm.

Also, for a really good dive into typography that includes the whys along with the hows, see Butterick's Practical Typography. It also covers font recommendations and basics of page layout and composition if you're considering making your own print products.

[RonarsCorruption]

I just want to say, as a usability geek, this is one of my favorite threads of this years competition. I really appreciate all the contributions within.

[Captain Phoenix]

Mikko Kallio wrote:

...or removing it from every colon.

Bwahahaha! Who said grammar wasn't a messy business.

[Captain Phoenix]

RonarsCorruption wrote:

I just want to say, as a usability geek, this is one of my favorite threads of this years competition. I really appreciate all the contributions within.

So true. Such a wealth of information. This is what I've been loving about RPGSS, it's a free school for 3PPs and freelancers.

I'm interested to know how an editor runs through a writers work and checks dashes. Find & Replace was mentioned, but is there more to it than that? Does Find & Replace catch all the variations?

Also, with regard to style guides, what other guides are common in the industry? Are there British English style guides that anyone can recommend?

[R Pickard]

Captain Phoenix wrote:

RonarsCorruption wrote:

I just want to say, as a usability geek, this is one of my favorite threads of this years competition. I really appreciate all the contributions within.

So true. Such a wealth of information. This is what I've been loving about RPGSS, it's a free school for 3PPs and freelancers.

I'm interested to know how an editor runs through a writers work and checks dashes. Find & Replace was mentioned, but is there more to it than that? Does Find & Replace catch all the variations?

There's a visible difference between the dashes. You just look and be sure it's the right one. And you want to do more than find and replace because beyond replacing hyphens with dashes, you want to be sure the dashes are being used correctly. Em-dashes can particularly be overused or misused. Sometimes this does mean going line by line to be sure everything's correct, but then again, that's basically what editing is.

Quote:

Also, with regard to style guides, what other guides are common in the industry? Are there British English style guides that anyone can recommend?

For British guides, I don't know, but I'd suggest looking at major British publications that accept submissions and see what they have in their instructions for authors. I'd guess that the Oxford style guide is common, but this is entirely a guess and could be wrong.

[Anthony Adam]

Captain Phoenix wrote:

RonarsCorruption wrote:

I just want to say, as a usability geek, this is one of my favorite threads of this years competition. I really appreciate all the contributions within.

So true. Such a wealth of information. This is what I've been loving about RPGSS, it's a free school for 3PPs and freelancers.

I'm interested to know how an editor runs through a writers work and checks dashes. Find & Replace was mentioned, but is there more to it than that? Does Find & Replace catch all the variations?

Also, with regard to style guides, what other guides are common in the industry? Are there British English style guides that anyone can recommend?

The Oxford one is about the one and only one to refer to - BUT - your best style guide is to look at the products produced by the company you are freelancing for... their style is the style to which you should refer and emulate.

As a new freelancer who is British in origin, I know how painful this can be, but if you work at it, it does start to become second nature.

Most Publishers, 3PP, etc., are US based and for those that aren't, more often than not, the non US ones do follow US styles and spellings for consistency in the market. There are exceptions, but in the main, US is the best starting point to learn well.

In short - the style you want is the style of the product you are writing for. You will often be able to get a company / product style guide once you are commissioned and contracted to a company for work. So always ask, it doesn't hurt.

[Captain Phoenix]

Thanks R Pickard and Anthony, it all makes a lot of sense. Incidentally, we used the Oxford style guide at our University. I believe it's particularly for academic texts.

Wikipedia has a list of style guides here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Style_guides, if anyone is interested.

[Garrett Guillotte]

Captain Phoenix wrote:

I'm interested to know how an editor runs through a writers work and checks dashes. Find & Replace was mentioned, but is there more to it than that? Does Find & Replace catch all the variations?

There's several ways, depending on the software. InDesign and InCopy in particular can use regular expression searches (aka GREP searches, after the *nix tool), which can search for and replace patterns of text. For example, I can write a regular expression to find only the hyphens surrounded by digits (like 18-19) and replace those hyphens with en dashes.

Back down the InDesign rabbit hole:

Regular expression searches in InDesign are really cool. Here's a 7-minute video of a guy who's even more excited than I am to talk about basic regular expression searches in InDesign.)

Here's another (still really simple and not particularly optimized) example:

(?<=(Str|Dex|Con|Int|Wis|Cha) )(-|~=)+

This matches one or more hyphens or en dashes (~= in InDesign GREP searches) following an abbreviated ability score name and a space. This is handy in stat blocks where Con -- needs to be Con — in one stat block, but Str – needs to be Str — in another stat block. It doesn't match any hyphen or en dash that isn't preceded by Str, Dex, Con, etc.

Seems like a simple fix that doesn't really need this sort of muscle, right? I could go through each stat block and fix them by hand, or even use a simple find for each type of dash and go through result by result looking for problems.

But when you've got a dozen monster stat blocks with a variety of dash or hyphen uses that can show up in front of any ability score, a regular expression scales beautifully; one click fixes any number of instances of this specific punctuation and doesn't change any potentially acceptable en dashes or hyphens in other contexts. InDesign and InCopy can also save these expressions for later use.

MS Word has a limited wildcard search function that can pull off similar tricks, but it's not quite as powerful as InDesign's regular expression support.

Either way, the goal is to use narrow but flexible searches that replace as many things as possible appropriately and carefully.