Command name for — character?

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Hi there,

Anyone know what the name of the command is for the — character?

I ask because I’d like to associate a keyword shortcut with it (Ribbon / Word Options / Customize / Keyboard shortcuts: Customize / Categories: All Commands).

I’m using Word 2007.

Thanks.

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The character is called an em-dash
The keyboard shortcut for this is Alt+Control+Num- (the minus key on the numeric keypad)

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Thanks, Stuart. Two things:

1. Any idea where Num- is on a (Dell) laptop?

2. I see commands for InsertEmSpace and InsertEnSpace, but nothing for InsertEmDash; see screen shot attached.

Thanks again.

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He’s saying that there’s already a “shortcut” for it: Ctrl+Alt+Num-. You don’t need to assign one on your own.

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Thanks, Damian. Did you see my first follow-up question?

1. Any idea where Num- is on a (Dell) laptop?

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1. Any idea where Num- is on a (Dell) laptop?

Don’t have a Dell, but normally it’s at Fn-; There’s probably a ‘virtual’ keypad, with figures on the top-right of the keys, for example covering keys 7890, UIOP, JKL;, M.+ (or perhaps similar) accessed by hitting the Fn (Function) key, somewhere on the bottom-left of the keyboard, together with the associated key.

Chris

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Thanks, Damian. Did you see my first follow-up question?

1. Any idea where Num- is on a (Dell) laptop?

I saw it. I’m sure I did. Must have noticed.

It really depends. Sometimes the Numpad keys are written in orange (on top of normal keyboard keys). The Lenovo I have has them written in white on the bottom-right corner of the keys, but it might be orange in the top-right.

However it is, there’ll be a key with a – written on it (beside the normal -/_ key). To type it you’d use the Fn key by Ctrl and Alt.
So you’d be hitting Ctrl+Alt+Fn+(some key). For the Lenovo it’s the :/; key but in general it’s somewhere near ‘P’.

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1. Any idea where Num- is on a (Dell) laptop?

The numeric keypad, such as it is, consists of a grid of light blue numbers/characters. Hold Fn plus the other necessary keys before tapping a key on the “numeric keypad.” If you use Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, you will get very used to this for zooming and unzooming images.

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1. Any idea where Num- is on a (Dell) laptop?
2. I see commands for InsertEmSpace and InsertEnSpace, but nothing for InsertEmDash; see screen shot attached.

On a laptop the number pad keys may be accessible through the Fn-P or similar since some laptops map a functional numberpad to keys on the right side of the letters. This is the case on my laptop keyboard (not a Dell). I don’t use this way though and prefer to use Alt-0150 or Alt-0151 to put in n and m dashs.

I would create a button by adding the dash as an autotext entry and then placing that on the toolbar. A better option would be to edit the autocorrect settings to allow Word to change something else to an n or m dash. There is a setting for autoformat which converts a double dash to n dashs.

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Rather than ‘All Commands’, try ‘Common Symbols’ at the bottom of the same list:

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Thanks for everyone for all your help.

It turns out that I need to press four keys to insert an em dash: Ctrl + Fn + Alt + (the key that contains the following three characters: : ; -).

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Thanks for everyone for all your help.

It turns out that I need to press four keys to insert an em dash: Ctrl + Fn + Alt + (the key that contains the following three characters: : ; -).

That is exactly the same combination of keys that I have to press on my HP laptop.

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