[Tex/LaTex] special hyphen-symbol to be used between capital letters

capitalizationhyphenationpunctuationtypography

In words consisting of small letters, the - hyphen seems right. In words (abbreviations, acronyms) consisting of capital letters, the common hyphen appears (at least imho) to be placed too low and to be too short (and en-dash too long). Is there a "capital-letter-hyphen-command"? (And what to use as hyphen between small and capital letters?) MWE:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
pole-axe versus CD-ROM versus FamouseMusicGroup-CD versus A-side
\end{document}

At least the hyphen in CD-ROM looks "wrong" to me.

\usepackage{graphicx}
\newcommand{\capitalhyphen}{\raisebox{0.24ex}{\resizebox{0.4em}{\height}{-}}\kern-0.07em}

would be possible, but I assume that there is already a solution to this, isn't it?

hyphens

top line: -

bottom line: \capitalhyphen

  • pole-axe - is OK
  • CD-ROM needs \capitalhyphen (or the command to use in this case)
  • FamouseMusicGroup-CD neither - nor \capitalhyphen seem to be ideal, but - is acceptable
  • A-side - is OK

Best Answer

I would say the typographically correct thing would be to use small caps for all-capital letter words, for example CD-ROM would become \textsc{cd-rom}:

That way, the hyphen is aligned nicely with the surrounding letters, and the all-caps word doesn't stand out as much. This is also the solution suggested by Erik Spiekerman in his Typo Tips.

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