From the course: The 33 Laws of Typography
Join today to access over 22,600 courses taught by industry experts.
28 Clarify, and improve readability, using hyphens
From the course: The 33 Laws of Typography
28 Clarify, and improve readability, using hyphens
- Law 28: Clarify and improve readability using hyphens. Hyphens are dash characters that are available on all standard keyboards. So hyphens are not special characters. Because of this, hyphens are the dash character that you're probably the most familiar with. Hyphens are less wide than both em dashes and en dashes. Although most people are familiar with hyphens, their usage can be a little bit confusing and sometimes complicated. Writers and editors are really the people who are responsible for including hyphens in the text that you may be typesetting. So, as a desktop publisher, what do you need to know about hyphens and when to use them? Hyphens should be used to improve readability and clarify meaning. Let's look at a few examples. Hyphens are used when two or more words are acting as a single modifier and appear before a noun. An example of this is five-dollar bills. Using the hyphen here makes it clear that we're talking about multiple bills that are worth five dollars each…
Practice while you learn with exercise files
Download the files the instructor uses to teach the course. Follow along and learn by watching, listening and practicing.
Download courses and learn on the go
Watch courses on your mobile device without an internet connection. Download courses using your iOS or Android LinkedIn Learning app.