.. _a_typ:

*******************
Typographical Notes
*******************

novelWriter has some support for typographical symbols that are not usually easily available in
many text editors. This includes for instance the proper unicode quotation marks, dashes, ellipsis,
thin spaces, etc. All these symbols are available from the :guilabel:`Insert` menu, and via
keyboard shortcuts. See :ref:`a_ui_shortcuts_ins`.

This chapter provides some additional information on how novelWriter handles these symbols.


.. _a_typ_notes:

Special Notes on Symbols
========================

Some additional notes on these symbols.


Dashes and Ellipsis
-------------------

With the auto-replace feature enabled (see :ref:`a_ui_edit_auto`), multiple hyphens are converted
automatically to short and long dashes, and three dots to ellipsis. The last auto-replace can
always be reverted with the undo command :kbd:`Ctrl`:kbd:`Z`, reverting the text to what you typed
before the automatic replacement occurred.

The symbols are available in the :guilabel:`Insert` menu. In addition, "Figure Dash" is also
available. The Figure Dash is a dash that has the same width as the numbers of the same font, which
tend to be the same width so that numbers align nicely in columns.


Single and Double Quotes
------------------------

All the different quotation marks listed on the `Quotation Mark`_ Wikipedia page are available, and
can be selected as auto-replaced symbols for straight single and double quote key strokes. The
settings can be found in :guilabel:`Preferences`.

Ordinarily, text wrapped in quotes are highlighted by the editor. This is meant as a convenience
for highlighting dialogue between characters. This feature can be disabled in
:guilabel:`Preferences` if this feature isn't wanted.

The editor distinguishes between text wrapped in straight quotes and with the user-selected double
quote symbols. This is to help the writer recognise which parts of the text are not using the
chosen quote symbols. Two convenience functions in the :guilabel:`Format` menu can be used to
re-format a selected section of text with the correct quote symbols.

.. _Quotation Mark: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark


Single and Double Prime
------------------------

Both single and double prime symbols are available in the :guilabel:`Insert` menu. These symbols
are the correct symbols to use for unit symbols for feet, inches, minutes and seconds. The usage of
these is described in more detail on the Wikipedia Prime_ page. They look very similar to single
and double straight quotes, but may be renderred similarly by the font, but they have different
codes. Using these correctly will also prevent the auto-replace and dialogue highlighting features
to understand their meaning in the text.

.. _Prime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_(symbol)


Modifier Letter Apostrophe
--------------------------

The auto-replace feature will consider any right-facing single straight quote as a quote symbol,
even if it's intended as an apostrophe. This also includes the syntax highlighter, which may assume
the first following apostrophe is the closing symbol of a single quoted region of text.

To get around this, an alternative apostrophe is available. It is a special Unicode character that
is not categorised as punctuation, but as a modifier. It is usually renderred the same way as the
right single quotation marks, depending on the font. There is a Wikipedia article for the
`Modifier letter apostrophe`_ with more details.

.. note::
   On export with the :guilabel:`Build Novel Project` tool, these apostrophes will be replaced
   automatically with the corresponding right hand single quote symbol as is generally recommended.
   Therefore it doesn't really matter if you only use them to correct highlighting.

.. _Modifier letter apostrophe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modifier_letter_apostrophe


Special Space Symbols
---------------------

A few variations of the regular space character is supported. The correct typographical way to
separate a number from its unit is with a `thin space`_. It is usually 2/3 the width of a regular
space. For numbers and units, this should in addition be a non-breaking space, that is, the text
wrapping should not add a line break on this particular space.

A regular space can also be made into a non-breaking space if needed.

All non-breaking spaces are highlighted with a differently coloured background to make it easier to
spot them in the text. The colour will depend on the selected colour theme.

The thin and non-breaking spaces are converted to their corresponding HTML codes on export to HTML
format. For plain text, they are exported as regular spaces.

.. _thin space: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_space
