Overview of special characters
To design a document professionally and to ensure that the output document is displayed properly, firesys provides you an overview of the most important typographic special characters in the “*Layout” menu ribbon.
An overview of special characters
En-dash
Keyboard shortcut: Ctrl + “-” on the numeric keypad
An en-dash is longer than a hyphen; a space is inserted in front and after it. Screen display as an example: This text – a good example.
Non-breaking hyphen
Keyboard shortcut: Ctrl + Shift + “-”
A non-breaking hyphen is used if a hyphenated term should not be split at the hyphen. Example: “EBIT margin”
Soft (discretionary) hyphen
Keyboard shortcut: Ctrl + “–”
A soft or discretionary hyphen is set manually to specify a separation point within a word; if the word is not split, the hyphen remains invisible. Screen display as an example: Test¬word
Non-breaking space
Keyboard shortcut: Ctrl + Shift- + Space
A non-breaking space is used to prevent a line break e.g. between a number and a unit of currency: 251 ͜ million Euro; screen display as an example: Test word (for an additional explanation of the coupler, see About the coupler.)
Soft return
Keyboard shortcut: Shift- + Enter
A soft return begins a new line but not a new paragraph – in contrast to a paragraph break (¶) which you can insert with the Enter key.
 |
Good to know
|
|---|---|
The paragraph marks (special characters) must be shown so that the screen display is visible. |
See also
All formatting options in Word
The StyleGuide
Highlight text
Breaks in firesys
The page layout in firesys