Non Breaking Hyphen Glyph automatically changes to Hyphen Minus Glyph

[default8q1uldzv98nu]

Everytime I try to use a non breaking hyphen it is automatically changed to a hyphen minus. 

I need to match the non breaking hyphen exactly as per client supplied files.

InDesign is substituting the glyph as it highlights yellow, but I cannot figure out why it substitutes it when the font contains the glyph.

[Eugene Tyson]

Hard to tell from the sreenshot.

Have you an example of how the clients looks compared to yours?

If you don't want to use a non-breaking hyphen you can use a 'No Break' for the two words. 

https://creativepro.com/keep-words-together-with-no-break/

[Joel Cherney]

Every font I've tried, it seems, behaves in this way. If I pick a font that I know has the non-breaking hyphen (say, Noto Sans) and then go to the Type -> Glyphs menu and enter the Unicode value (U+2011) and insert the non-breaking hyphen, it's also substituted with an 002D hyphen and highlighed yellow as a substituted glyph. Doesn't matter which font I try. It still exhibits non-breaking behavior even when substituted. It's also a non-breaking hyphen once exported to PDF. 

Could you match your client-supplied files by using Eugene's suggestion of using a hyphen with No Break applied to the phrase, or perhaps by turning off highlighting for substituted glyphs? 

[default8q1uldzv98nu]

Unfortunately adding no break isn't an option I need the unicode to match in order for it to go through text comparison software. Basically need to show my qc department i have done everything i can to try match it before they will accept it isn't possible.

the exported PDF needs to have the 2011 unicode rather than the 002D unicode.

thanks for the speedy responses.

[Joel Cherney]

When I tested the PDF, I found a U+2011 embedded in the PDF. I verified this by saving a few different formats out of Acrobat (UTF-16 text, Word doc, etc.) and found a U+2011 there. I don't know what kind of comparison is being applied here; have you already tried it? Is the tool your QC department is using one that we can learn about, or is it some kind of in-house thing? 

[Eugene Tyson]

Yes I understand I use similar tools.

Can you insert the Unicode manually? If you can then you can find and replace to insert all.

[Laubender]

Hi default8q1uldzv98nu,

did you select the hyphen and checked its Unicode codepoint value with the Info panel?

Also did a test with the Noto font.

I applied the special character NONBREAKING_HYPHEN with a little ExtendScript (JavaScript) script that assigns the special character to selected text:

// Selected text will change to that special character:
app.selection[0].contents = SpecialCharacters.NONBREAKING_HYPHEN;

Below the strange result. InDesign's Info panel is showing Unicode 2011 for the selected hyphen.

The Glyphs panel is showing Unicode 0020 HYPHEN MINUS at the same time:

If I do an Inventory Report with an exported PDF/X-4 in Acrobat on the used fonts, Acrobat is showing Unicode 2011 for that glyph; so that special character is exported right, I think:

What makes me a bit uneasy is Acrobat's Preflight on the font with

"Browse Internal Structure of All Document Fonts" where it states that the used shape is U+002D:

So the question now is: What is that particular tool doing with a PDF file?

Clearly the report is telling that U+2011 is used. And that glyph's shape is from U+002D…

( My personal interpretation that could be wrong. )

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[Test Screen Name]

If I was designing a font, I might well use the same shape for both of these code points (that is, put the same GID for both Unicode entries to avoid wasting space with duplicate copies of the same shape). There seems no typographic reason to make them look distinct. I wonder if doing this in a font looks, at some level, like a substitution.

[default8q1uldzv98nu]

That's is very in depth. I don't know half of how you have found all that info but that really does highlight the issue.

The text software is not in house however I don't believe I am allowed to disclose the name.

The old software we used also highlighted the unicode difference and that was docuproof global vision

Thanks all for your input on this issue. 

Do we think this is an InDesign bug?

[Laubender]

"Do we think this is an InDesign bug?"

No. I don't think so.

It seems that the software you cannot disclose is looking at the wrong spot in a PDF.

The inventory report of Acrobat Pro is listing the right Unicode code point.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[Laubender]

All in all you need a software that is checking the InDesign document itself. Not the PDF where this kind of information is not relevant anymore. The shape of the glyph is the right one in the PDF. No issue at all. If you want to get information if the glyph is a non-breaking hyphen and you must build on this in the steps that follow in your workflow, extract the data from InDesign and not from a PDF.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[Laubender]

"I don't know half of how you have found all that info but that really does highlight the issue."

Acrobat Pro DC:

Print Production > Preflight > Options > Create Inventory…

Print Production > Preflight > Options > Browse Internal Structure of All Document Fonts…

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[karolinas64645014]

Hello,
I had the same problem and it was solved when I changed the language from Arabic to Hungarian (in my case) in the character panel. I don't get it, I just tried.