Very long dashes in Victorian-era book
Very long dashes in Victorian-era book
I am trying to faithfully recreate the typographic style of a Victorian era book. One thing I've noticed is the extensive use of dashes: em-dashes are everywhere, for example.
Beyond the em dash however, I notice a set of even longer dashes. For example the dash used to indicate a pause in conversation due to a sudden interruption is about 1.5 times the length of an em dash. A similarly long dash is used to indicate the missing part of a name, e.g. "He traveled by horse to W-----".
How can I go about defining and working with dashes longer than an em dash. I can't seem to find any information on the web? I'm using XeLaTeX for my work.
For those wondering why old books do that in the first place, it's discussed on English.SE.
– Wildcard
Sep 8 '18 at 1:31
If your goal is to faithfully recreate the typography of the original book, wouldn't it be more accurate to use a series of dashes? I believe that's what was typically used at the time, as Victorian-era typesetters wouldn't have had access to sorts (i.e, special pieces of movable type) for abnormally long dashes either.
– duskwuff
Sep 8 '18 at 22:54
2 Answers
2
You can superimpose two em-dashes:
newcommandemmdash---kern-0.5em---
Full example:
documentclassarticle
newcommandemmdash---kern-0.5em---
begindocument
``He traveled by horse to Wemmdash”
-- --- emmdash
enddocument
At first you suggested something like
hbox to 1.5em---hss---. Is there a significant difference between both methods?– Phelype Oleinik
Sep 7 '18 at 19:24
hbox to 1.5em---hss---
@PhelypeOleinik The current version respects possible kernings with characters before and after the dash.
– egreg
Sep 7 '18 at 19:25
The overlaid portions appear somewhat darker.
– AlexG
Sep 7 '18 at 19:28
@AlexG Artifact. I added a high resolution screenshot.
– egreg
Sep 7 '18 at 19:31
Very creative solution. Thank you!
– A. Ahmad
Sep 7 '18 at 19:36
You can use a Latex "rule" to create a thin rectangle.
documentclassarticle
begindocument
He travelled by horse to Wrule[0.5ex]3em0.5pt
enddocument
the format is rule[raise]width-xthickness-y (source)and this can of course be used in a newcommand for convenience.
rule[raise]width-xthickness-y
newcommand
By using "ex" and "em" units, the rule should scale nicely with the font.
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See also tex.stackexchange.com/q/447557 If your fonts support it, you can use Unicode’s omission dash.
– Thérèse
Sep 7 '18 at 19:23