In QuarkXPress and InDesign, there are many special characters whose name is preceded by the prefixes em- or en-. These prefixes specify the width of the special character that they modify (usually a space or a dash) as follows:
em- |
A width equal to the width of two zeros or the height of the current font (depending how you have setup the QuarkXPress or InDesign Document Preferences for the current document). |
en- |
Half of an em. |
Note that, contrary to popular belief, the em- and en- prefixes do not refer to the with of the m and n characters. Furthermore it is rarely the case that an en-dash will be the same width as an en-space.
Topic 175570, last updated on 13-Dec-2022
