# ConTeXt: Cannot typeset four consecutive hyphens

I'm having trouble typsetting four consecutive hyphens in a custom font.

Here's a minimal example:

``````\definesimplefont[myfonthere][myfontname]

\starttext
{\myfonthere ----}
\stoptext
``````

This always comes out as two italicized hyphens. I need four separate hyphens, because this is to represent rolling four minuses on a set of Fudge Dice, which are dice that let you roll a value between -4 and +4.

This may be an incredibly newbie question, but I'm new to ConTeXt, and none of my LaTeX tricks are working here.

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We'd like to keep answers separate from questions, so instead of editing your answer into the question it should be an own answer – and you have in fact written a separate answer. Self-answers are perfectly admissible, and a well-written answer may earn you additional reputation. –  Speravir Apr 24 '13 at 0:35
Thank you for that. I saw the "answer your question" button after editing the answer in... and must have forgotten to edit it out! –  gatesphere Apr 24 '13 at 12:00

My answer is based on Wolfgang's answer. When the font feature `tlig` is active, TeX ligatures are active — including the one that merges `--` into '–'. You can turn off all font features in the proper way, as described by Wolfgang, if you want such things several times in your document. If you want those discrete dashes just once or twice, this might be good enough for you:

``````----                           % dashes get merged
{\setfontfeature{none} ----}   % dashes don't get merged
----                           % dashes get merged
``````

If you want to save typing, `\setff` is a shorter synonym for `\setfontfeature`.

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Where can I find a description of the exact function of `\setff`? –  Hans-Peter E. Kristiansen Apr 23 '13 at 21:29
@Hans-PeterE.Kristiansen: A combination of two documents, and some guesswork. 1: wiki.contextgarden.net/Command/setff 2:pmrb.free.fr/contextref.pdf, section 5.10 Font feature sets, `tlig` defaults to `no`, so not mentioning it in my `\setff` should work. –  prash Apr 23 '13 at 21:51
@Hans-PeterE.Kristiansen: Looking back at the thread in question, Wolfgang specifies that `\setff` is just an alias for`\setfontfeature`. Given that, the description in contextref.pdf applies directly. –  prash Apr 23 '13 at 22:04
@Hans-PeterE.Kristiansen: See Fonts out of MkIV for details about font features. –  Aditya Apr 23 '13 at 22:30
`\addfontfeature`, `\setfontfeature` etc. are nearing obsolescence. Please consult this announcement by Hans for a demonstration of the new, soon to be canonical interface. –  phg Apr 25 '13 at 10:05

Thanks to comments to prash's answer, I hacked together this solution:

``````\definesimplefont[myfonthere][myfontname][features=none]

\starttext
{\myfonthere ----}
\stoptext
``````

That `features=none` turned out to be the key.

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