{"id":61318,"date":"2020-04-29T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-29T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/?p=61318"},"modified":"2020-05-04T09:48:08","modified_gmt":"2020-05-04T14:48:08","slug":"how-to-type-en-dashes-em-dashes-and-hyphens-on-a-mac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/61318-how-to-type-en-dashes-em-dashes-and-hyphens-on-a-mac\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Type En Dashes, Em Dashes, and Hyphens on a Mac"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

We are all familiar with the standard hyphen symbol and know what it’s called. It is primarily used to hyphenate words (hence its name) and often used as the minus sign (-) in math. But what about those dashes that appear more extended than a hyphen? What are they used for, and how do you type them? This quick little guide should help you out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are three standard types of horizontal punctuation “lines” used in writing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Hyphen (-)<\/li>
  2. En Dash (\u2013)<\/li>
  3. Em Dash (\u2014)<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n
    \n\n\n\n

    What is an Em Dash?<\/strong> (\u2014)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Simply put, an em dash is a dash the width of an em. Right… So, what is an em? In printing or character display on a screen, “em” is a unit of measurement roughly equal to the height<\/em> of the font being used. If the type-size you’re using is 12px, then your em dash will be 12px in length.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The em dash is the one we most associate as a long dash. It is mostly used stylistically to replace commas, colons, and parentheses. That means a sentence like this\u2014though an odd example\u2014appears a bit more artistic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    How Do You Type an Em Dash?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    You can type an em dash on your Mac by hitting shift + option + hyphen (-)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"em<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
    \n\n\n\n

    What is an En Dash?<\/strong> (\u2013)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    An en dash is one-half the width of an em dash. So, using our em dash example above of 12px, the en dash would be 6px wide. It is primarily used to replace “through” or “to” in spans of time and ranges of numbers: I read pages 34\u201396 last night from 10:00\u201311:00pm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    How Do You Type an En Dash?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    You can type an en dash on your Mac by hitting option + hyphen (-)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"en<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
    \n\n\n\n

    You don’t have to be too much of a stickler when it comes to dashes\u2014unless you are strictly bound to a writing style such as APA<\/a>. Most people are very forgiving, even if they don’t notice that you are using something longer than a hyphen. That said, you should<\/em> stay away from any form of a dash where a hyphen is required. Not only is it grammatically incorrect, but you would want to re\u2014edit what you wrote anyway. Using an em dash or en dash in a compound word just looks plain goofy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    We are all familiar with the standard hyphen symbol and know what it’s called. It is primarily used to hyphenate words (hence its name) and often used as the minus sign (-) in math. But what about those dashes that appear more extended than a hyphen? What are they used for, and how do you type them? This quick little guide should help you out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":61344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"class_list":["post-61318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-tips"],"yoast_head":"\nHow to Type En Dashes, Em Dashes, and Hyphens on a Mac<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We are all familiar with the hyphen, but what about those longer dashes? What are they used for, and how do you type them? 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