Non-Breaking Hyphens???

[CathyT]

This seems like the most basic thing, yet I can't find it anywhere in these forums or in Flare help. How do I insert a non-breaking hyphen in Flare? The Insert > Character list includes a non-breaking space, but not a non-breaking hyphen. I've tried using Unicode keystrokes, and although they seemed right in the editor window, they didn't work in the output.

It is SOOOO basic that it seems certain that I'm missing something that's staring me in the face, and yet.... Sigh.

Thanks in advance.

[SteveS]

Habe you tried entering ‑?

[Gordo]

You can make the non-breaking hyphen your Quick Character if you plan to use it frequently.

First, open any topic. From the Insert menu, select Character and then "Select 'Quick Character'..." Enter 8209 in the lower text box and you should see your non-breaking hyphen appear above. Click OK and the non-breaking hyphen is now your Quick Character. You can then use F11 to insert that Quick Character into your topics.

--G

[CathyT]

Thank you both very much. It's working like a charm.

[doc_guy]

Welcome to the forums, CathyT

[CathyT]

Thank you so much. I'm learning tons. Can't wait to have a chance to give back.

[CathyT]

Its me again....

The tips you gave me work great for online/web help, but sadly, not for print. The non-breaking hyphen appears in Word as an open box on the screen and as a blank space in print. This happens whether it's inserted from my Variables list or if I type it directly into a topic.

The odd thing is that if I copy an instance of it to do a Search and Replace, it appears in the "Find" box as a hyphen when I paste it, so somehow, Word is recognizing it for what it should be. At first I thought that it might be a misrepresentation onscreen that would resolve itself in print or in the PDF, but that's not happening. I know that Flare's support of Word is weak. Does anyone know if there is a workaround besides a search and replace?

Thanks again for your help.

[bonnie]

You can make the non-breaking hyphen your Quick Character if you plan to use it frequently.

I too have been in dire need of a non-breaking hyphen in my print output (I'm going straight from Flare to PDF). Unfortunately, I just tested the ‑ code and found it doesn't work for the PDF output either, even if I type it in via the Text Editor. If I try entering it as a Quick Character, I get a little box shown as the selected character, which shows up as a little box in the Text Editor, and translates to an ordinary breaking hyphen in the PDF output.

The only solution that I've been able to come up with in lieu of a non-breaking hyphen is to look for bad breaks in the printed output, then go back into Flare and enter a soft line return in front of the term that I don't want to break, and apply a print-only condition to the soft return, so it doesn't show up in the WebHelp. (Of course, if you change something in that paragraph, you will have to check the line breaks again. (a painful process, I know).

Bonnie

[CathyT]

Hi Bonnie,

In my case, my company's brand name includes a hyphen, followed by two letters, and then a non-breaking space to the first word of each product. It would be agony to try to use soft returns. There would be hundreds of them in the larger guides.

Until I find a way to make the non-breaking hyphen work in print, it's easier (although inelegant) to do the global search and replace after generating the Word doc. Maybe it would be less trouble for you to take the intermediate step of outputting to Word also, if you have a lot of these instance to deal with.

[bonnie]

Until I find a way to make the non-breaking hyphen work in print, it's easier (although inelegant) to do the global search and replace after generating the Word doc.

I've still got Word 2002, which doesn't allow me convert to Word from Flare. (We do all our documentation in FrameMaker.)

Thanks for the suggestion, though.
Bonnie

[SteveS]

...In my case, my company's brand name includes a hyphen, followed by two letters, and then a non-breaking space to the first word of each product. It would be agony to try to use soft returns. There would be hundreds of them in the larger guides.

You can use a variable for things like company name and product name. Look for the variables folder in the project organiser. You can also add using Project -> Add Variable Set...

You might want to create a snippet if you are using a 'complex' campany name/ product name combination, rather than adding the same group of variables each time.

The main advantage of using a variable is you can change once to update a thousand uses of things like names, version numbers, and so on.

[CathyT]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for your reply. I am using a variable set, and I've set up all our product names in that set to use a non-breaking space and non-breaking hyphen.

In my online/web output, these are working. In my print output, they're not. They're not working whether they're being pulled from the variable set, or if they're typed into the topic as regular text.

By the way, the whole Insert>Character menu is gray when you're on the Variables page. The only way I could even get the non-breaking hyphen in there was to copy the text string from a topic page.

Thanks for your help.

Cathy

[Cecily]

Habe you tried entering ‑?

How/where?

Pasting or typing in just puts characters in literally (as one would expect). I wondered if it was an ASCII, so tried holding down Alt, but that did nothing at all. Then I tried to define it as a Quick Character (as suggested above), but it only accepts the 4 numerals and that inserts a little box, rather than a non-breaking hyphen.

Also, once I define it as a Quick Character, is there a way to define that as a keyboard shortcut (otherwise it's a bit laborious, eg when typing a page about co-ordinates).

[doc_guy]

Try opening the topic in an external editor (like NotePad, or the like) and entering the code in where you want the non-breaking hyphen. Then see if that works. I don't know of a way to do it directly in the editor.

A few tips:

• If you want to open a topic in a different editor, right click on the topic in the Content Explorer and select "Open With >" and select your other editor.
• If you are working in a topic and want a quick way to find the topic in the Content Explorer (maybe you opened the topic as a link from the TOC or whatever), you can click on the Locate File in Content Explorer button, which is on your tool bar, just to the left of the "cut" button.
• Flare's internal text editor is about as good as Notepad, but if you use TextPad or some other program, you will get code coloring, which can help.

[Cecily]

Try opening the topic in an external editor (like NotePad, or the like) and entering the code in where you want the non-breaking hyphen.

Thanks.

However, it didn't work for me: I opened a topic in the internal text editor and typed the code &#8209 where I wanted the non-breaking hyphen to be, but then couldn't open the topic the normal way because of invalid XML syntax, so presumably it needs to be enclosed in tags of some sort (I tried angle brackets, but still got the error).

Even if it did work, I'm not sure I'd use it as it wouldn't be very viable if typing a formatted page that contains several hyphens.

It seems ridiculous that there isn't a straightforward way to add a non-breaking hyphen in the normal editing pane.

[bonnie]

Try opening the topic in an external editor (like NotePad, or the like) and entering the code in where you want the non-breaking hyphen. Then see if that works. I don't know of a way to do it directly in the editor.

I tried this, too. And it doesn't work, unfortunately. If it did, I WOULD use it.
Bonnie

[rlauriston]

Works fine with PDF output for me with Flare 7. I guess they fixed that bug.