Preventing units from being "broken" to the next line
I'm having trouble with keeping "units" on the same line, or together. For example, g C m-2 (grams of carbon per square meter) often gets broken between the "-" and "2". I realize it's possible to use non-breaking spaces, but this doesn't help in this situation because there aren't spaces between "-" and "2". Any ideas?
I'm using Microsoft Word 2007 on a PC (and mac). Apologies if this is not an appropriate question for this site.
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1 answer
I believe you need a nonbreaking hyphen. It'll keep the characters before and after it from breaking across lines. From Butterick's Practical Typography:
Your word processor assumes that any hyphen marks a safe place to flow the text onto a new line or page. Similar to the nonbreaking space, the nonbreaking hyphen looks identical to a hyphen but will not be used as a place for a line break or page break.
In Word 2007 for Windows, Press CTRL+SHIFT+HYPHEN. On Word for Mac 2010, press command-shift-dash or Insert > Symbol > Advanced Symbol.
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