# Inserting Protected Spaces, Hyphens and Conditional Separators

/text/shared/guide/space_hyphen.xhp
protected spaces;inserting
spaces; inserting protected spaces
hyphens;inserting custom
conditional separators
separators; conditional
dashes
non-breaking dashes
replacing;dashes
protected dashes
exchanging, see also replacing
Inserting Protected Spaces, Hyphens and Conditional Separators
Non-breaking spaces
To prevent two words from being separated at the end of a line, hold down the Command key Ctrl key and the Shift key when you type a space between the words.
In Calc, you cannot insert non-breaking spaces.
Non-breaking dash
An example of a non-breaking dash is a company name such as A-Z. Obviously you would not want A- to appear at the end of a line and Z at the beginning of the next line. To solve this problem, press Shift+Ctrl+ minus sign. In other words, hold down the Shift and Ctrl keys and press the minus key.
Hyphen, dash
In order to enter longer dashes, you can find under Tools - AutoCorrect Options - Options the Replace dashes option. This option replaces one or two minus signs under certain conditions with an en-dash or an em-dash (see $[officename] Help).
For additional replacements see the replacements table under Tools - AutoCorrect Options - Replace. Here you can, among other things, replace a shortcut automatically by a dash, even in another font.
Definite separator
To support automatic hyphenation by entering a separator inside a word yourself, use the keys Command Ctrl+minus sign. The word is separated at this position when it is at the end of the line, even if automatic hyphenation for this paragraph is switched off.
Special characters