Hi. This is as much a general Mac question as a Scrivener question.
Somewhere, on my Mac, I have a setting which changes two dashes into an em dash. So when I type two dashes, then hit space, the two dashes are replaced by an em dash. This happens in most applications, including Scrivener. However, it doesn’t happen when I type in a web browser – so it’s apparently not a universal setting.
But I can’t figure out where this setting is and how to change it. I looked in System Preferences> Keyboard> Text, but there’s no shortcut there for turning two dashes into an em dash.
Does anyone know where the setting might be?
I don’t want dashes to be turned into an em dash when I’m writing in Scrivener using Script Mode.
It has been renamed, I think it is now called Preferences ︎ Corrections ︎ Use smart dashes and ellipses in new projects, and to toggle it in existing projects Edit ︎ Substitutions ︎ Smart dashes and Ellipses.
The strange thing is I just discovered that in other apps, such as the Notes app, if I type two dashes and a SPACE, the dashes are replaced with an em dash. Further, if I try to do it in other templates in Scrivener 3, such as the Blank template, as soon as I type the second dash both dashes are automatically converted to an em dash. The problem seems to occur only in the US Stage Play template.
Under Preferences > Corrections, beneath the “Use smart dashes and ellipses in new projects” checkbox, there is another checkbox: “Disable smart dashes and ellipses in script mode”. If that is ticked, smart dashes will not be used in scripts such as US Stage Play.