Remove recently used symbol

[AndrewMozley]

When entering a Word document, I often use the 'en-space' — a slightly wider hyphen. To put this into the document, I click Insert on the top ribbon menu, then Symbol on the right, clicking on the drop-down list. This shows some recently used symbols and the 'More symbols'. From there I choose 'Special characters', and finally the 'en-dash'.

That does give me the character I want, but I would have liked the en-dash then to appear on the list of 'recently used symbols', to speed up the process next time. It does not do that.

Is there a way that I can force 'the en-dash' to appear among my recently used symbols - perhaps to removing some of the others from the little block of twenty which first appears.

Thank you - Andrew

 

[combo]

The recent symbols list is dynamic. Alternative - use en-dash keybord shortcut: hold CTRL and press '-' in the numeric pad.

combo

 

[AndrewMozley]

Thank you for your prompt reply, combo.

I realise that the 'recent symbols' list is usually dynamic, but it seems to have become static on my machine! Even though I have used the en-dash about a dozen times in my recent session, the 'Recent symbols' remains unchanged; for example it includes musical symbols which I used quite some time ago. The en-dash is not being added to the list.

As far as a keyboard shortcut is concerned, Ctrl plus hyphen on the numeric keypsd just alters the Zoom on my document (from 100% to 90%). Have I got a different version of Microsoft Word?

Andrew

 

[combo]

It seems that zoom shortcut is a new feature in Word 365:

https://insider.microsoft365.com/en-us/blog/new-zoom-shortcuts-in-word

You may follow the tip in this article and either check or define new keyboard shortcut for en dash. In the ribbon customization form (

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...rtcuts-9a92343e-a781-4d5a-92f1-0f32e3ba5b4d),

step 6, scroll down the categories list, under 'typical symbols' find required one. You can find current assignment if exists, it is also possible to define custom sequence of keys.

NB, there may be security settings on your computer that block updating lists, in this case a definition of custom keys sequence may be not recorded too.

combo

 

[Andrzejek]

Another (a long) way around would be to record a Macro with your own keyboard shortcut placing the en-dash in your text.

---- Andy

"Hmm...they have the internet on computers now"--Homer Simpson

 

[Deniall]

Another way to get an en-dash is to hold down the Alt key while typing 0150 on the numeric key pad.[ ] To get his big brother the em-dash, it's Alt-0151.[ ] I use both these symbols sufficiently often that it is worth my while to have memorized them.

[sub][ ]—————————————————————————————————[/sub]
[sup]Engineering mathematician/analyst.[ ] See my profile for more details.[/sup]

 

[AndrewMozley]

Thank you Deniall. . . Alt key held down, then 0150 on numeric key pad.

For some reason this does not work for me on my Office 365 version of Word.

However if I set the autocorrect option on :
File | Options | Proofing | Autocorrect | Autoformat
and tick Replace hyphens (--) with en-dash,
that seems to do the trick; although it only kicks in once I have pressed the Newline (paragraph) key on the right of the alphabetic part of the keyboard.

Thanks again - Andrew

 

[Mike Lewis]

Yet another option would be to AutoHotkey. This is a free utility which lets you set up keyboard macros and shortcut keys in any application. It's probably not worth going to the trouble of downloading and installing it just to solve this particular case, but it's something you might want to keep in mind for the future.

Mike

__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads

 

[Deniall]

I am using Windows-10, and that Alt-key plus numeric keyboard caper seems to work with any program that is expecting keyboard input.

[sub][ ]—————————————————————————————————[/sub]
[sup]Engineering mathematician/analyst.[ ] See my profile for more details.[/sup]