# Word problem - Minus sign and corresponding number get split across consecutive lines



## longtalker (Oct 28, 2008)

I have a lot of numbers in a rather narrow paragraph. Some of them are negative, and inevitably, it sometimes happens that the minus sign gets split across line breaks, such that I have, for example:

The slope value was -
0.4, which indicates
that....

This can be confusing for readers. Is there a setting that can be made in Word 2007 which ensures that this does not happen, and that the minus sign stays close to the number?

Thanks in advance for any tips!


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## macropod (Apr 11, 2008)

Hi longtalker,

You can overcome this by inputting the minus signs as non-breaking hypens (via Ctrl-Shift-Hyphen). For any existing minus signs, you 
can 'fix' them via Find/Replace, using '-' as the Find text and '^~' as the Replace text.

Strictly speaking, the non-breaking hypen isn't the same as a minus sign, but few people could tell the difference. If you want a genuine non-breaking minus sign:
. Open the Symbol dialog box;
. Select the non-breaking minus sign (you can find the character e.g. by selecting Font: (normal text), Character code: 2212, from: Unicode (hex)).
You could also add this to a keyoard shortcut.


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