The missing en dash

[Gustav Broberg]

Hi!

First of all, thanks a lot for AsciiDoc; it's one of the most
beautiful markup formats I've come across. As opposed to (La)TeX
etc. it makes separation of presentation and content easy. Most
important is that the content-to-markup ratio is really high and still
it
allow you to produce really complex documents.

That said, it's not perfect. ;) As far as I can tell there is by
default no pretty way of writing an en dash with AsciiDoc. En dash is
the "typographically correct" dash to use when expressing ranges
(e.g. 1997--2009), but it also has some other uses [1]. Em dashes are
possible to write in AsciiDoc using "--", so it seems a bit arbitrary
that it lacks support for en dash.

To give examples of how it's done in other markup languages that
support dash substitution:

* In TeX, "--" is replaced with en dash and "---" is replaced em
dash.

* The Textile markup language use "-" for en dash and "--" for em
dash. [2]

Right now I'm using a custom config file to change the replacements
("--" to en dash and "---" to em dash), but it would be great if there
was a way to do it without customization.

I realize that it's problematic to make any changes to AsciiDoc's
markup if it breaks people's existing documents, and I have no good
idea of how to avoid it. I'm really just pointing to the problem... :)

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash#En_dash
2. http://redcloth.org/hobix.com/textile/quick.html

--
Gustav Broberg

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[Stuart Rackham]

Post by Gustav Broberg
Hi!
First of all, thanks a lot for AsciiDoc; it's one of the most
beautiful markup formats I've come across. As opposed to (La)TeX
etc. it makes separation of presentation and content easy. Most
important is that the content-to-markup ratio is really high and still
it
allow you to produce really complex documents.
That said, it's not perfect. ;) As far as I can tell there is by
default no pretty way of writing an en dash with AsciiDoc. En dash is
the "typographically correct" dash to use when expressing ranges
(e.g. 1997--2009), but it also has some other uses [1]. Em dashes are
possible to write in AsciiDoc using "--", so it seems a bit arbitrary
that it lacks support for en dash.
To give examples of how it's done in other markup languages that
* In TeX, "--" is replaced with en dash and "---" is replaced em
dash.
* The Textile markup language use "-" for en dash and "--" for em
dash. [2]
Right now I'm using a custom config file to change the replacements
("--" to en dash and "---" to em dash), but it would be great if there
was a way to do it without customization.
I realize that it's problematic to make any changes to AsciiDoc's
markup if it breaks people's existing documents, and I have no good
idea of how to avoid it. I'm really just pointing to the problem... :)

Using the Textile syntax would retain em dash compatibility but existing hyphens
become en dashes.

Using the TeX syntax retains the hyphen but changes existing em dashes to en dashes.

I don't know which is best or whether both are worse than the status quo.


Cheers, Stuart

Post by Gustav Broberg
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash#En_dash
2. http://redcloth.org/hobix.com/textile/quick.html
--
Gustav Broberg

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[Stuart Rackham]

Of course, using the character enity – explicitly works now.

Post by Gustav Broberg
Hi!
First of all, thanks a lot for AsciiDoc; it's one of the most
beautiful markup formats I've come across. As opposed to (La)TeX
etc. it makes separation of presentation and content easy. Most
important is that the content-to-markup ratio is really high and still
it
allow you to produce really complex documents.
That said, it's not perfect. ;) As far as I can tell there is by
default no pretty way of writing an en dash with AsciiDoc. En dash is
the "typographically correct" dash to use when expressing ranges
(e.g. 1997--2009), but it also has some other uses [1]. Em dashes are
possible to write in AsciiDoc using "--", so it seems a bit arbitrary
that it lacks support for en dash.
To give examples of how it's done in other markup languages that
* In TeX, "--" is replaced with en dash and "---" is replaced em
dash.
* The Textile markup language use "-" for en dash and "--" for em
dash. [2]
Right now I'm using a custom config file to change the replacements
("--" to en dash and "---" to em dash), but it would be great if there
was a way to do it without customization.
I realize that it's problematic to make any changes to AsciiDoc's
markup if it breaks people's existing documents, and I have no good
idea of how to avoid it. I'm really just pointing to the problem... :)
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash#En_dash
2. http://redcloth.org/hobix.com/textile/quick.html
--
Gustav Broberg

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