Being a pedantic old me, I always feel annoyed when I see designers use hyphens instead of en dashes such as:
1 June 2009 - 3 June 2009 or 2-4pm (annoying),
instead of:
1 June 2009 – 3 June 2009 or 2–4pm (appropriate use of en dash).
An en dash (–) is usually longer than a hyphen in length and is used to indicate a range of values such as dates, times or numbers. For example:
This display home will be open on every Sunday, 1–1.30pm. The price range is $250,000 – $285,000.
A hyphen (-) is usually used to connect words that break at the end of a line, or simply connect words to form compound words such as ice-cream, ill-natured, and run-of-the-mill. It is usually shorter in length and its shape varies from one font to another. For this occasion, I usually use en dashes instead of hyphens to represent NIL (no value) in financial tables like those in annual reports.
Some will argue that they will not risk changing clients’ copies if the clients use hyphens instead of en dashes inappropriately. However, by checking and replacing them precisely, this will not only improve the colour and texture of the body copy, but also show the mac operator or designer’s skill of accuracy and being highly attentive-to-detail. And there are a few easy tricks to perform the replacement precisely in Indesign and will discuss these in the next few posts.
Monday, June 1, 2009
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