How do I keep TextEdit from "correcting" hyphens?

I'm trying to type an address in TextEdit. It contains a 5+4 digit ZIP code, e.g. 12345-6789. The character between the first five digits and the last four digits is supposed to be a hyphen, and that's what I typed, but TextEdit replaces it with an en-dash! I cannot figure out how to prevent it from doing this! Does anybody know how I can persuade this idiot program to just accept the characters I type instead of making an incorrect assumption about what I mean???

This is the kind of frustrating idiocy I've come to expect from Microsoft Word. Now Apple's own TextEdit is doing the same thing? This is infuriating.

MacBook Pro 17, Mac OS X (10.4.10), 4 GB RAM, 160 GB HD

Posted on Sep 23, 2007 7:04 PM

20 replies

David Livesay Author

Level 4

2,301 points

Oct 4, 2007 6:58 PM in response to Charles Minow

That menu I found. I meant how do you get the one with all those options! 🙂

Anyway, I don't think this problem is due to a typography feature because one of the problem fonts just says, "No typographic features in this font," when I select "Typography."

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,252 points

Oct 4, 2007 7:40 PM in response to David Livesay

Anyway, I don't think this problem is due to a typography feature because one of the problem fonts just says, "No typographic features in this font," when I select "Typography."

I'm pretty sure it is the result of the typography features selected (assuming that the app does not have some kind of "smart punctuation" option turned on as well). "CY" fonts are not actually different fonts than the ones with the same name without those letters at the end -- they are just a way of selecting non-Unicode Cyrillic encoding for apps that need it, like Appleworks. Neither Courier nor Geneva exhibit the feature for me in TextEdit. But another font which can do this (as well as smart quotes) is Palatino.

David Livesay Author

Level 4

2,301 points

Oct 4, 2007 8:14 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

I'm pretty sure it is the result of the typography features selected (assuming that the app does not have some kind of "smart punctuation" option turned on as well). "CY" fonts are not actually different fonts than the ones with the same name without those letters at the end -- they are just a way of selecting non-Unicode Cyrillic encoding for apps that need it, like Appleworks.

It sure looks like a different font to me. I have a bunch of Helvetica fonts, Helvetica, Helvetica CY, Helvetica Neue, and Helvetica-Narrow. They all look a little different from each other.

Neither Courier nor Geneva exhibit the feature for me in TextEdit. But another font which can do this (as well as smart quotes) is Palatino.

Not for me. The hyphen and en dash look different, but there's no change if I put a hyphen between two numbers, and nothing in the Typography menu has any effect on this.

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,252 points

Oct 5, 2007 7:12 AM in response to David Livesay

But another font which can do this (as well as smart quotes) is Palatino.

Not for me. The hyphen and en dash look different, but there's no change if I put a hyphen between two numbers, and nothing in the Typography menu has any effect on this.

We probably have different Palatino's. It doesn't come with OS X proper, but many people have the OS 9/Classic version available on their system, which does these things.

http://homepage.mac.com/thgewecke/ptypo.jpg

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,252 points

Oct 5, 2007 8:17 AM in response to David Livesay

It sure looks like a different font to me. I have a bunch of Helvetica fonts, Helvetica, Helvetica CY, Helvetica Neue, and Helvetica-Narrow. They all look a little different from each other.

Yes, they are physically different fonts, but of these Helvetica CY would normally only be used by someone writing in Russian rather than English.

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How do I keep TextEdit from "correcting" hyphens?