Typographic Details Volume 1
Typographic Details
The words you chose deserve to be read. Typesetting helps bring focus to these words, and correct use of punctuation helps your words shine.
Check for…
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Spacing. You should always have one space in-between sentences, not two.
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Quotes. Curly quotes in both singles and pairs are used for dialogue and direct quotations. Frequently, these quotes get confused and replaced with inch and feet marks. You can tell the difference because these ones are straight.
“Hello everyone! I’m ready for the weekend,” she said.
correct
"Hello everyone! I'm ready for the weekend," she said.
incorrect
The teacher is 5'6"
correct
The teacher is 5’6”;
incorrect
Use‘and’for ‘left and right’ single curly quotes.
Use“and”for “left and right” double curly quotes.
Use"and'for inch' and feet" marks.
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Hyphens. There are three types of hyphens: —em dashes, –en dashes, and -hyphens. They all serve different purposes and vary in length.
A hyphen (-) is the shortest of the three and is used to make any compound adjectives clear. Hyphens are inserted by hitting the hyphen key on your keyboard.
I’ll write him an e-mail about sugar-free soda consumption in the twenty-first century.
T-Pain
An en-dash (–) is used to connect values in a range or that are related. A good rule is to use it when you’re expressing a “to” relationship. Use–to achieve this symbol.
The years 1945–1960
The Cowboys beat The Raiders 20–19
An em-dash (—) is used to interrupt a sentence, or in place of commas and parentheses. American style uses no spaces—like this—around em dashes, but British style does use spaces. We’ll go over this in Typographic Details Volume 2. Use—to achieve this symbol.
I wish you would—oh, nevermind.
It takes two to tango—one to dance and one to boogie! -
Your turn: Typeset the following sentences correctly:
Thanks for recommending that song, Ignition (Remix) by R. Kelly. I know it reached its peak from 2003-2005 Im still into it. Back in those days, I was only 5”2” and my favorite band was o town.