Mac EN7 'thin space' keyboard command

On Dec 21, 2006, at 13:00,
Claudio.Pompili[claudio1claudiopompili.net.au]
wrote:

> I'm running Mac OSX 10.4.8, Microsoft Word X and
EndNote 7. [...] I'm 
> wanting to use 2-em dashes separated by a 'thin space'.
Have set up 
> the 2-em dashes OK but can't crack how to get a 'thin
space' in EN7. 
> [...]

Short answer: In the current configuration, you can't. You
must upgrade
to the Unicode-savvy versions of those applications (EN 9/EN
X and
Office 2004). (Actually, there is a way -- building and
using a font
which contains a thin space character. But there are many
shortcomings
to this solution.) If you do decide to upgrade, you should
be aware that
both Thomson and Microsoft offer demo versions -- you should
try them
out first.

Long answer: One should begin by distinguishing between
character and
glyph. Characters are abstractions, represented internally
by the
software as codes; these codes are defined in tables known
as character
sets (charsets, or sometimes code pages). Different
operating systems
use different charsets, and the same operating system may
use several
different charsets. For instance, the default charset in the
international version of the Mac OS was MacRoman, in which
em-dash was
<0xD1>. By contrast, in CP1252, a PC charset, em-dash
was <0x97>. The
glyph is the visual representation of a character, and
glyphs are
defined in fonts. The match between a particular character
and a glyph
is made in the font and depends on the font's designer --
e.g., there is
nothing to force him to use for character o (code
<0x6F>) a glyph that
approximates a circle.

Now we get to the problem. Older charsets, like MacRoman or
CP1252, did
not include thin space, because they were limited to <
256 characters,
which wasn't enough for typographical refinements.
(Moreover, "thin
space" is ambiguous -- depending on who you ask, it may
mean 0.2 ems or
1/6th of an em.) Applications like EN, which depended
entirely on the
operating system for typography, simply could not use thin
spaces; DTP
applications (e.g., Pagemaker) managed thin spaces through
their own
internal routines.

But Unicode (which is actually much more than just a
charset) is big
enough to accommodate items like thin spaces (<U+2009>
and others), and
it's used by both Mac OS X and Win XP. Hence, any
Unicode-savvy
application can use thin spaces; and there's the rub --
neither EN 7,
nor Office X are Unicode-savvy. To use Unicode, you must
upgrade to EN
9 or EN X and to Office 2004.

There is a further wrinkle. The character itself is an
abstraction; it's
the font that determines what is displayed for a particular
character.
While some fonts do have a thin space glyph (e.g., Lucida
Grande,
Palatino Linotype), most (even new, Unicode-savvy fonts) do
not have it.
And here's what happens in Mac OS X: when the user applies
to a
character a font which does not contain a glyph for that
character, the
system will automatically choose for that character a font
which does
contain a glyph for it. The result may not be immediately
obvious (after
all, thin space is a blank) but it may affect such issues as
leading.


<0x0192>