Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT
I've read the thread from 2014 (updated in 2018) and it doesn't work me. I'm using OS 10.14.6. When I type "Soft Hyphen" into the searchbox in "Show Emojis and Symbols", the only thing that comes up is a character called "Mongolian Todo Soft Hyphen". Clicking this into the text merely generates a raised hyphen at the start of the new line, not at the end of the previous one where the break is. Does anyone have a solution that actually works?
I just booted up my iMac running 10.14.6 and in Pages v10.1, the Emojis and Character panel provided the following when I searched for hyphen. Note that it is present on my U.S. iMac, but not displayed.
and by entering the Unicode value:
I just booted up my iMac running 10.14.6 and in Pages v10.1, the Emojis and Character panel provided the following when I searched for hyphen. Note that it is present on my U.S. iMac, but not displayed.
and by entering the Unicode value:
But if you searched for the word soft in the Emojis & Symbols panel, you would see the soft hyphen is present.
You then double-click that selected soft hyphen to have it inserted in Pages at the current insertion point.
If you will be using soft-hyphens, export to Word early and view the result in either LibreOffice Writer, or a recent MS Word to ensure that your use of soft-hyphens is handled properly with the translation from Pages to Word.
We have different apps. I'm using OS 10.14.6 (and I'm in the UK) and my version of Pages is 10.1. So maybe you're benefiting from a feature that doesn't exist on 10.1. I get a choice of hyphens but none is called "Soft".
They are labeled when you click on them, but they are only labeled when you click on them. They don't have icons, and therefore are invisible unless you know they're there. I can't see an icon for the soft hyphen you helped me find: I have to click on what looks like empty space. Suppose I had three or four or five of these things: I'd also have to remember the order that these non-visible features were ranked in, and their approximate position in the window. There must be a more helpful way to display them.
You add the soft hyphen to your emoji & symbols Favorites so you don't have to hunt for it, or you can establish a keyboard replacement sequence (//- as suggested by Peter Breis in your original link).
In System Preferences > Keyboard panel > Text, add a Replace sequence: //- and tab over to its With column and then open up the Emoji & Symbols viewer (control + cmd + space). Find the soft-hyphen, and then double-click it to insert it into the With field. Press return to set it.
Now, provided you have Edit menu > Substitutions > Text Replacement enabled, you can enter a soft hyphen in your Pages text by typing //- . Fittingly, no character will appear in that With field for the soft hyphen, but it will be there.
What a long-winded business! I have followed your instructions. What happens is that as well as inserting a soft hyphen, it also inserts a return, which I then have to manually delete in the text. Or, if I set the replacement with a dash, I then have to manually remove the dash in the text after inserting the soft hyphen. It works - thank you! - but it is clumsy. I guess there's no way to set the replacement without also adding in an additional keystroke that it will copy along with the intended substitution.
(But what I was talking about before is not being able to see the replaceable features on the menu. As you said, there are 18 possible "spaces". But no matter.)
That's not what I see when I type "Soft". What I see is this - and the hyphen is this Mongolian thing.
Mine was Pages v11.1 on macOS 11.5.2 on a U.S. system. Search for hyphen. Here is what I get:
You can even enter the 00AD Unicode value in the search box and it will return that character:
... and, by the way, I'm not using Word: just Pages.
You're right! Thank you -- but that is utterly absurd, to have a feature that's invisible unless you know it's there. I really appreciate your help. This will change my life!
You are welcome.
PS: If you think that is absurd, search for the word space. There are 18 empty locations that contain a type of space.
Apple should really label all of these features. Is there a reason why they haven't?
As a fellow user, I cannot explain their application development decisions. What do you mean? They are labeled when you click on them… 🤓
The return keystroke in that "With" window is used to set the field, and should not insert a return in the substitution. None of mine do.
How create soft hyphen in Pages?
