Getting Started Guide

Inserting dashes and non-breaking spaces and hyphens
To prevent two words from being separated at the end of a line, press
Control+Shift+spacebar after the first word to insert a non-breaking space.
In cases where you do not want the hyphen to appear at the end of a line, for example
in a number such as 123-4567, you can press Control+Shift+minus sign to insert a
non-breaking hyphen.
To enter en and em dashes, you can use the Replace dashes option on the Options tab
under Tools > AutoCorrect Options. This option replaces two hyphens, under
certain conditions, with the corresponding dash.
– is an en-dash; that is, a dash the width of the letter “n” in the font you are
using. Type at least one character, a space, one or two hyphens, another space,
and at least one more letter, then a space. The one or two hyphens will be
replaced by an en-dash.
— is an em-dash; that is, a dash the width of the letter “m” in the font you are
using. Type at least one character, two hyphens, and at least one more
character, then a space. The two hyphens will be replaced by an em-dash.
See the Help for more details. For other methods of inserting dashes, see the Writer
Guide.
Setting tab stops and indents
The horizontal ruler shows both the default tab stops and any tab stops that you have
defined. Tab settings affect indentation of full paragraphs (using the Increase Indent
and Decrease Indent icons on the Formatting toolbar) as well as indentation of parts
of a paragraph (by pressing the Tab key on the keyboard).
Using the default tab spacing can cause formatting problems if you share documents
with other people. If you use the default tab spacing and then send the document to
someone else who has chosen a different default tab spacing, tabbed material will
change to use the other person’s settings. This may cause major formatting problems.
Instead of using the defaults, define your own tab settings, as described in this
section.
To define indents and tab settings for one or more selected paragraphs, double-click
on a part of the ruler that is not between the left and right indent icons to open the
Indents & Spacing page of the Paragraph dialog. Double-click anywhere between the
left and right indent icons on the ruler to open the Tabs page of the Paragraph dialog.
A better strategy is to define tabs for the paragraph style. See Chapters 6 and 7 in
the Writer Guide for more information.
Tip
Using tabs to space out material on a page is not recommended.
Depending on what you are trying to accomplish, a table is usually a
better choice.
Changing the default tab stop interval
Note
Any changes to the default tab setting will affect the existing default
tab stops in any document you open afterward, as well as tab stops you
insert after making the change.
86 Getting Started with OpenOffice.org 3.3