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Hard hyphen key shortcut?

Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 7:39 pm
by Perotinus
Hi all,
Recently I recall seeing a post that mentioned a shortcut key for a Hard Hyphen (a non-breaking hyphen) as well as for a Hard Space (Ctrl+spacebar) for use in Lyrics.

Going to "Lyrics >Lyrics Window> Text" shows the Hard Space shortcut, but nothing for the Hard Hyphen.

I can't seem to locate the post I saw anymore, so I am not sure whether the Hard Hyphen shortcut might only apply for Mac (I am on Windows). Does anyone have any info, for yes or no? THANKS in advance.
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Re: Hard hyphen key shortcut?

Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 9:50 pm
by Perotinus
I located the post. It was on the Facebook Finale power users page. The keystrokes listed there did not work for PC (ctrl-shift-hyphen for a hard hyphen). I'll have to do an FS remapping instead. Too bad.

Re: Hard hyphen key shortcut?

Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 9:55 pm
by motet
I'd be surprised if FinaleScript worked there. All you need do is hold down Alt and press xh

Re: Hard hyphen key shortcut?

Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 10:16 pm
by Bill Stevens
On the Mac the hard hyphen is not really a hyphen, but a dash. If you want it to be the right size you have to select it and reduce the font size, and it still doesn't look quite right. In some cases I have used a non-breaking space and created a hyphen as an expression and moved it into the space. It all depends on how picky you are.

Bill

Re: Hard hyphen key shortcut?

Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 10:17 pm
by motet
Alt xh will pick "Insert hard hyphen" from the Text menu.

Re: Hard hyphen key shortcut?

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 2:29 pm
by Perotinus
Of course! Indeed it will! Thank you so much, Motet.

Re: Hard hyphen key shortcut?

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 2:42 pm
by miker
I have been told for quite some time, that a future remapping of the Finale Lyric font will correct this. Still waiting, and still no easy solution for other fonts.

Re: Hard hyphen key shortcut?

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 4:53 pm
by BuonTempi
miker wrote:I have been told for quite some time, that a future remapping of the Finale Lyric font will correct this. Still waiting, and still no easy solution for other fonts.
There are two problems here:
How does Finale distinguish the hard hyphen from the usual hyphen?
And does your font have another hyphen-shaped glyph?

The easy way to differentiate the hard hyphen is to use a different character: the trouble is that not all fonts have another hyphen-shaped glyph in another character slot.
Bill Stevens wrote:On the Mac the hard hyphen is not really a hyphen, but a dash.
Finale used to (on Mac, at least) use a dash for a hard hyphen, which often had a different width and vertical position from the standard hyphen. This has now been fixed, but at a cost.

Finale now uses U+2010 as the "hard hyphen" character, which is the only other valid slot for a hyphen glyph in Unicode. However, it's quite a lottery whether a font has this glyph or not. Many fonts, including plenty of "Std" OTF faces, do not.
(Most fonts will have another hyphen glyph at U+00AD, but this is reserved for a special usage and doesn't normally display.)

Ideally, the hard hyphen character should be settable in Document Options, both character and typeface. (I've also suggested that the ellision curve should be settable in a similar way, and accessible from the Lyric menu, as the Hard Hyphen.) For the best of all worlds, these extra glyphs should be bundled within fonts that comes with Finale, so that whatever fonts you have, you can access an alternative char for a hard hyphen.

Finale Lyrics has neither of the alternative hyphen characters: in fact it has very few glyphs -- a mere 198.