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I am talking about these settings:

enter image description here

Here it says The Add button does not become enabled until you type some text in the:- With: - box.

But that's not the case here; the button stays gray:

enter image description here

Am I missing something?

Charles Kenyon
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cipricus
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2 Answers2

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I think that you have entered in the Replace field the value of -- , which ends with a blank.

Auto Correct does not accept a blank at the end or the beginning of the "Replace" string, because apparently this does not agree with its algorithm for identifying the strings. Perhaps because a blank in the input will launch the Auto Correct string-search, so the blank itself cannot be searched-for unless it is in the middle of the string.

As your entry is invalid, Word will not let you enter it. The Add button will stay disabled as long as you have not removed that ending blank.

harrymc
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  • What was shown is two hyphens without an intervening space. – Charles Kenyon Nov 18 '21 at 17:51
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    @CharlesKenyon: Not "intervening" - following. "that ends with a blank". – harrymc Nov 18 '21 at 19:28
  • I thought I had tested with full words too, but the space must have slipped there too. – cipricus Nov 18 '21 at 21:32
  • OK. What exact sequence needs to be replaced? This is probably worth a new question. – harrymc Nov 18 '21 at 22:20
  • You are perfectly right as to what was my problem. But as seen in the autocorrection default list punctuation marks without letters (`...` or `---`) can be "corrected" to anything we like. But so can forms containing spaces between signs (e.g. `ab cd`). What we cannot do is correct forms that *start or end with space*. But there is no clear logic for that, and surely not by definition because `Auto Correct does the correction of words, and a word cannot contain spaces.` That should be removed from the answer. `....` or `zz zz` are not words and can be corrected. – cipricus Nov 18 '21 at 22:43
  • Your answer is perfect, excepting the line in the middle, which says more than is the case here. Words, letters and signs are not the issue here, just spaces before or after entire sequence of signs. Words cannot contain spaces? You mean correct words. But *incorrect* forms is what we want to correct (also: not just words). **Why wouldn't an aberrant form start or end with space?** – cipricus Nov 18 '21 at 22:57
  • Amazingly, we cannot "correct" anything that starts or ends with space, but we can correct anything that does *not* start or end with space *to anything* whatsoever, including a long sequence of nothing but spaces! – cipricus Nov 18 '21 at 23:17
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    I have added in my answer my theory for this behavior of Word. I think that if I had programmed the algorithm the effect would have been the same, unless I was trying real hard to include starting/ending blanks in the algorithm. – harrymc Nov 19 '21 at 08:58
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What you are asking for may be interfering with an AutoFormat as you type setting. That replaces two hyphens with an en-dash. Try checking that box and seeing if it does what you want. This also replaces a single hyphen surrounded by spaces between words with an en-dash.

AutoFormat as you type dialog

P.S. I would recommend against checking the box to automatically use suggestions from the spelling checker.

Charles Kenyon
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    I think you mean em-dash, and it looks like Word actually inserts an en-dash by default – GammaGames Nov 18 '21 at 22:19
  • I will come back to clarify this when I have more time. Now what I see is that AutoFormat (as said in your image) replaces `--` with `–`, (e.g. `-- now.` becomes `– now.`). But the same happens with just `-` ( `- now.` becomes `– now.`. I don't know if by AutoFormat or other setting). – cipricus Nov 18 '21 at 22:30
  • Oddly, setting corrector to a language for which I don't even have proofing tools installed I can write something like `So – then so – then`. Both dashes, created by autoformat, are en-dashes, the first was typed `-`, the second was typed `--` (an em-dash would be this: `—`). – cipricus Nov 18 '21 at 23:50
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    @GammaGames you are correct that it is an en-dash. I have corrected my answer. – Charles Kenyon Nov 19 '21 at 00:35
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    @cipricus AutoCorrect is language specific. Both - and -- when surrounded with spaces and between words will be replaced with an en-dash. – Charles Kenyon Nov 19 '21 at 00:38
  • I am not a native US-English speaker, so I ignored that, unlike in other languages, including British, in American English, the em-dash is to be used [without space](https://www.scribbr.com/language-rules/dashes/) between it and words. Trying to type em-dash I was always typing a **space** after a word and then `--` (`word>space>double-hyphen>space>word>space`), which triggers en-dash. For em-dash one should do `word>double-hyphen>space>word>space` or `word>double-hyphen>word>space`. – cipricus Nov 19 '21 at 08:52
  • But things get even more odd. The same em-dash-with-no-spaces auto-format behavior happens in other languages (French, Romanian) where there is no such thing as em-dash without spaces (French requires space even between word and exclamation mark etc), and the resulting American form is not even underlined by the French or Romanian spell-checker. (This oddity is not likely to occur though, because in those Ianguages we don't type `word--`, without space after the word.) Anyway, I prefer autocorector with `--` for en-dash and `.--` for em-dash. – cipricus Nov 19 '21 at 09:14
  • Looks like a good workaround. – Charles Kenyon Nov 19 '21 at 16:18