[NEW] A Guide to Em Dashes, En Dashes, and Hyphens | en dash – NATAVIGUIDES

Among punctuation marks, dashes have a certain panache. They take the reader aside, and then draw that reader to the next bit like a good dance partner in the lead.

There are various punctuation items that can be described as dashes, and we will get to them all, but we’ll begin with the most useful, and most used. It looks like — or sometimes (as when one’s word processing program fails to convert it) – – and it’s called the “common dash,” or “em dash.” The two names are well-earned; this dash is the most common true dash, and it’s the approximate width of a capital M.

The Em Dash: An Introduction

The em dash can function like a comma, a colon, or parenthesis. Like commas and parentheses, em dashes set off extra information, such as examples, explanatory or descriptive phrases, or supplemental facts. Like a colon, an em dash introduces a clause that explains or expands upon something that precedes it.

The em dash is sometimes considered a less formal equivalent of the colon and parenthesis, but in truth it’s used in all kinds of writing, including the most formal—the choice of which mark to use is really a matter of personal preference.

Spacing around an em dash varies. Most newspapers insert a space before and after the dash, and many popular magazines do the same, but most books and journals omit spacing, closing whatever comes before and after the em dash right up next to it. This website prefers the latter, its style requiring the closely held em dash in running text.

How to type one, however, depends on your machine.

The Em Dash in Action: A New Direction

• An em dash can mark an abrupt change or break in the structure of a sentence.

Mabel the Cat was delighted with the assortment of pastries the new bakery featured, but Harry the Dog—he felt otherwise.

• An em dash can indicate interrupted speech or a speaker’s confusion or hesitation.

Harry’s bafflement was apparent. “That the bakers fail to recognize the crucial importance of the cheese Danish—”

“Of course you have a point,” Mabel murmured. “That is—I suppose it is concerning.”

The Em Dash in Action: Attention Must Be Paid

• Em dashes are used in place of commas or parentheses to emphasize or draw attention to parenthetical or amplifying material. In this particular task, em dashes occupy a kind of middle ground among the three: when commas do the job, the material is most closely related to what’s around it, and when parentheses do the job, the material is most distantly related to what’s around it; when dashes do the job the material is somewhere in the middle.

The butteriness of the pastries did say something about an appropriate level of commitment to decadence—at least there was that.

And the wide range of its hours of operation—6 a.m. to 6 p.m.—certainly showed concern for customers’ manifold circumstances.

• Dashes set off or introduce defining phrases and lists.

A regular selection of three kinds of croissants—plain, almond, and chocolate—was heartening, both Mabel and Harry agreed.

The pies changed—apple year-round, for example, but pumpkin in fall and winter, strawberry rhubarb in spring, and peach in summer—as the bakery’s devotion to fresh ingredients dictated.

And Harry was extremely pleased to see the selection of available cakes—both chocolate and yellow butter cake; carrot cake; pound cake; lemon chiffon; and flourless chocolate cake.

• An em dash is often used in place of a colon or semicolon to link clauses, especially when the clause that follows the dash explains, summarizes, or expands upon the preceding clause in a somewhat dramatic way.

Harry would never forget the Tuesday that Mabel called him from the bakery, her voice brimming with excitement—the bakery had added cheese Danishes to its selection.

Nor would Harry forget his first bite of the Danish she delivered to him. It was revelatory—it was a cheese Danish nonpareil.

• An em dash or pair of dashes often sets off illustrative or amplifying material introduced by such phrases as for example, namely, and that is, when the break in continuity is greater than that shown by a comma, or when the dash would clarify the sentence structure better than a comma.

The bakery was truly phenomenal. Although they did miss the mark somewhat with the pineapple upside-down cake Mabel ordered—that is, the cake had clearly been baked right-side up.

”You see,” Mabel averred, “even a moderately keen observer can ascertain—namely from its shape—a baked cake’s oven orientation.”

• An em dash may introduce a summary statement that follows a series of words or phrases.

Chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, peanut butter, snickerdoodle, both macarons and macaroons—the panoply of cookie varieties was impressive as well.

The bakery was also adept at deliciously modifying recipes to meet any variety of dietary restrictions—not an easy feat in many cases.

• A dash often precedes the name of an author or source at the end of a quoted passage—such as an epigraph, extract, or book or film blurb—that is not part of the main text. The attribution may appear immediately after the quotation or on the next line.

“One cannot underestimate the effect a good bakery can have on a person’s well-being.” —Mabel the Cat, The Websterburg Reporter

The bread sublime, the cheese Danish divine.

—Harry the Dog

The Em Dash in the Company of Other Punctuation Marks

• If an em dash appears at a point where a comma could also appear, the comma is omitted.

Within its first year, Mabel and Harry had sampled all of the bakery’s offerings—all 62 items—and had also decided that the exercise was worth repeating.

When the bakery closed for the month of August to give its staff a break—no one denied it was much deserved—Mabel was forlorn.

• When a pair of em dashes sets off material ending with an exclamation point or a question mark, the mark is placed inside the dashes.

Mabel tried, despite her dolefulness—for how could she be otherwise?—to bake her own bread but each loaf that emerged from her oven tasted vaguely of tears.

When September arrived—finally!—the yeasty perfume wafting through Websterburg’s town square routed her darksome gloom.

• Dashes are used inside parentheses, and vice versa, to indicate parenthetical material within parenthetical material. The second dash is omitted if it would immediately precede the closing parenthesis; a closing parenthesis is never omitted.

The bakery’s reputation for scrumptious goods (ambrosial, even—each item was surely fit for gods) spread far and wide.

The Other Dashes (Not Nearly So Dashing But Still Useful)

• Remembering that the em dash is the length of a capital M, it will surprise no one that the so-called “en dash” is the approximate length of a capital N, –. The en dash is the least loved of all; it’s not easily rendered by the average keyboard user (one has to select it as a special character, whereas the em dash can be conjured with two hyphens), so it’s mostly encountered in typeset material. (A hyphen does its job in other text.) It is most often used between numbers, dates, or other notations to signify “(up) to and including.”

The bakery will be closed August 1–August 31.

The bakery is open 6:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.

The exceedingly complex recipe spans pages 128–34.

Mabel and Harry lived elsewhere 2007–2019.

Note that one does not need words like from and between in these cases. The phrase “open 6:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.” can be read as “open between 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.” or as “open from 6:00 a.m. to/until 6:00 p.m.”

• If you want to be official about things, use the en dash to replace a hyphen in compound adjectives when at least one of the elements is a two-word compound.

the post–Cold War era

The thinking is that using a hyphen here, as in “the post-Cold War era,” risks the suggestion that post attaches only to Cold. It’s unlikely, though, that a reader would truly be confused.

• The en dash replaces the word to between capitalized names, and is used to indicate linkages such as boundaries, treaties, and oppositions.

a Boston–Washington train

the Websterburg–Oxfordville border

the pie–cake divide

night–day differences or night-day differences

• A two-em dash, ——, is used to indicate missing letters in a word and, less frequently, to indicate a missing word.

The butter-stained and crumb-embedded note was attributed to a Ms. M—— of Websterburg.

• A three-em dash, ———, indicates that a word has been left out or that an unknown word or figure is to be supplied.

Years later it was revealed that the Websterburg bakers had once had a bakery in ———, a city to the south. But the water quality there was prohibitive to the creating of decent bagels.

A Hyphen Can Be Considered to Be a Kind of Dash

While we said above that the em dash, also called the “common dash,” is the most common of the true dashes, hyphens show up more frequently in text. They have a variety of uses.

• Hyphens are used to link elements in compound words.

the bakery fan club’s secretary-treasurer

a baker-owner

• In some words, a hyphen separates a prefix, suffix, or medial element from the rest of the word.

Websterburg’s pre-bakery days

a bread-like scone

jack-o’-lantern sugar cookies

• As we noted above, a hyphen often does the job of an en dash between numbers and dates, providing the meaning “(up) to and including.”

pages 128-34

the years 2007-2019

• A hyphen marks an end-of-line division of a word.

Mabel and Harry don’t like to linger on their memories of Webster-

burg’s pre-bakery days.

• A hyphen divides letters or syllables to give the effect of stuttering, sobbing, or halting speech.

“M-m-mabel, the cheese Danish is divine!”

• Hyphens indicate a word spelled out letter by letter.

Let’s not even talk about August, when the bakery is c-l-o-s-e-d.

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In today’s article, you’ll learn how to use some keyboard shortcuts to type the En Dash Symbol (text) anywhere like Word/Excel using Windows or Mac.

Just before we begin, I’ll like to tell you that you can also use the button below to copy and paste the En Dash sign into your work for free.

However, if you just want to type this symbol on your keyboard, the actionable steps below will show you everything you need to know.

En Dash Symbol [–] Quick Guide

To type the En Dash Symbol on Mac, press [ Option ] + [ – ] shortcut on your keyboard. For Windows users, simply press down the Alt key and type 0150 using the numeric keypad, then let go of the Alt key. These shortcuts can work on any software including MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, on both Windows and Mac.

Below table contains all the information you need to type thisSymbol on keyboard for both Mac and Windows.

Symbol NameEn DashSymbol–Alt Code0150Shortcut for WindowsAlt+0150Shortcut for Mac[ Option ] + [ – ]Shortcut for Word2013, Alt+X

The quick guide above provides some useful shortcuts and alt codes on how to type the En Dash symbol on both Windows and Mac.

For more details, below are some other methods you can also use to insert this symbol into your work such as Word or Excel document.

How to type En Dash Symbol [text] in Word/Excel

Microsoft Office provides several methods for typing En Dash Symbol or inserting symbols that do not have dedicated keys on the keyboard.

In this section, I will make available for you five different methods you can use to type or insert this and any other symbol on your PC, like in MS Office (ie. Word, Excel, or PowerPoint) for both Mac and Windows users.

Without any further ado, let’s get started.

Using the En Dash Symbol Alt Code (Windows Only)

The En Dash Symbol alt code is 0150. Even though this Symbol has no dedicated key on the keyboard, you can still type it on the keyboard with the Alt code method. To do this, press and hold the Alt key whilst pressing the En Dash Alt code (i.e. 0150) using the numeric keypad.

This method works on Windows only. And your keyboard must also have a numeric keypad.

Below is a break-down of the steps you can take to type the En Dash Sign on your Windows PC:

• Place your insertion pointer where you need the En Dash Symbol text.
• Press and hold one of the Alt keys on your keyboard.
• Whilst holding on to the Alt key, press the En Dash Symbol’s alt code (0150). You must use the numeric keypad to type the alt code. If you are using a laptop without the numeric keypad, this method may not work for you. On some laptops, there’s a hidden numeric keypad which you can enable by pressing Fn+NmLk on the keyboard.
• Release the Alt key after typing the Alt code to insert the Symbol into your document.

This is how you may type this symbol in Word using the Alt Code method.

Using the En Dash Symbol Shortcut (Mac and Windows)

For Mac users, the keyboard shortcut for the En Dash Symbol is [ Option ] + [ – ]. For Windows users, use the Alt Code method by pressing down the [Alt] key whilst typing the symbol alt code which is 0150. You must use the numeric keypad to type the alt code. Also, ensure that your Num Lock key is turned on.

Below is a breakdown of the En Dash Symbol shortcut for Mac:

• First of all, place the insertion pointer where you need to type the symbol (–).
• Now, press [ Option ] + [ – ] simultaneously on your keyboard to insert the symbol.

Below is a breakdown of the En Dash Symbol shortcut for Windows:

• Place the insertion pointer at the desired location.
• Press and hold down the Alt key
• While pressing down the Alt key, type 0150 using the numeric keypad to insert the symbol.

These are the steps you may use to type this sign in Word or Excel.

Copy and Paste En Dash Sign – (text)

Another easy way to get the En Dash Symbol on any PC is to use my favorite method: copy and paste.

All you have to do is to copy the symbol from somewhere like a web page, or the character map for windows users, and head over to where you need the symbol (say in Word or Excel), then hit Ctrl+V to paste.

Below is the symbol for you to copy and paste into your Word document. Just select it and press Ctrl+C to copy, switch over to Microsoft Word, place your insertion pointer at the desired location, and press Ctrl+V to paste.

–

Alternatively, just use the copy button at the beginning of this post.

For windows users, obey the following instructions to copy and paste the En Dash Symbol using the character map dialog box.

• Click on the Start button and search for Character Map. The Character Map app will appear in the search results, click to open.

• The Character Map dialog will appear. Click to check the Advanced view check-box to expand the dialog box for more advanced options.

• On the advanced view, type En Dash in the Search box.
• You should now see the – Symbol on the character map dialog. If you can’t see it, then you should look through the library of symbols to spot it. When found, double click it to select. Alternatively, click on the Select button.

• After you select the symbol by double-clicking it, it should appear in the Character to copy: field, then click on the Copy button to copy the symbol.
• Switch to your Microsoft Word or Excel document, place the insertion pointer at the desired location, and press Ctrl+V to paste.

This is how you may use the Character Map dialog to copy and paste any symbol on Windows PC.

Using insert Symbol dialog box (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)

The insert symbol dialog box is a library of symbols from where you can insert any symbol into your Word document with just a couple of mouse clicks.

Obey the following steps to insert this symbol (–) in Word or Excel using the insert symbol dialog box.

• Open your Word document.
• Click to place the insertion pointer where you wish to insert the symbol.
• Go to the Insert tab.

• In the Symbols category, click on the Symbol drop-down and select the More Symbols button.

• The Symbol dialog box will appear. In the Subset drop-down list, select General Punctuation to display symbols in this category which includes the En Dash Symbol.
• Select the symbol and click on the Insert button. Alternatively, double click on the symbol to insert it into your Word document.

• Close the dialog.

The symbol will then be inserted exactly where you placed the insertion pointer.

These are the steps you may use to insert the this Symbol in Word.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are several different methods you can use to type the En Dash Sign in Microsoft Word.

Using the shortcuts for both Windows and Mac makes the fastest option for this task. Shortcuts are always fast.

Thank you very much for reading this blog.

If you have anything thing to say or questions to ask concerning the En Dash Symbol, please drop it in the comments.