In-line or in line?

No hyphen, it's just in line. "in-line" would be something that's arranged side by side in row/s. You want something that's like, "along the same lines," so that would just be in line....like fall in place, fall in line.

The OED says it is "in-line" as an adjective or noun (not your usage or question, I know), but almost all of its examples (an "inline" gasoline engine, for instance) lack the hyphen, which is strange.

But you are not using it as an adjective, and I would think it is a verbal form, to bring something in line with something else.

As a hyphenated word becomes of popular usage and easily recognized, the hyphen is eventually dropped. Technology brings forth a new product as in "in-line" skates. Eventually the hyphenated word will become, "inline," if it already hasn't.

There is only a hyphen when you are combining two things that cannot be with out eachother. Like apple-pancakes. You need the hyphen there. I would need to see the rest of the sentence to be fully sure but I think that yes, there is a hyphen there.

I mean like Apple Flavored pancakes

No hyphen is needed. You would only need a hyphen if it were a compound adjective, such as in-line skates.

"in-line" as an adjective or adverb

"in line" if your as a verb + noun as in "Sally and Jane where in line for an hour."

difficult step. try searching from yahoo and bing. that might help!

no -