In Word for PC, press using the minus key on the numeric keypad.
#Em dash for mac how to#
How to insert a hyphen in any program: Just hit the hyphen key on your keyboard, it’s on the top row between “0” and “=.”Įn Dash-According to CMOS, en dashes (which are half the length of the em dash) “specify any kind of range, which is why they properly appear in indexes when a range of pages is cited (e.g., 147–48)” and this is also true for date ranges like the period 1948–1960.
The problem with hyphens arises when they are used where another mark-the en dash or em dash-might be more appropriate. Hyphens are very common in English, and the hyphen key is easy to find on the keyboard.
#Em dash for mac manual#
Hyphen-As the Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) says, the hyphen “connects two things that are intimately related, usually words that function together as a single concept or work together as a joint modifier.” Examples include op-in, tax-free, one-third, and so on. For instance, a manuscript might come back with markups like these:īecause self-publishers are responsible for everything that ends up in their books, you need to know what each of these characters means, the differences between hyphens, en-dashes and em-dashes, and how to get them into your book in the right way. In the normal course of things, your editor will be correcting any errors in dash use and indicating where each type of dash should be used. To make sure we’re all on the same page, here are each of the three marks under discussion, each next to the letter “a” to provide a point of reference: Now that you understand this very old printer’s measurement, we can dive into the three types of dashes commonly used in written works. The em dash in both instances is exactly the same width, even though the capital “M”s are very different: You can see why the “capital letter M” method isn’t logical in this example of two capital letter “M”s from two different fonts. An em is simply the horizontal measure exactly corresponding to the type size. If you change the type to 14 points, the em changes to 14 points as well.
So for a typeface being set in 12 point, an “em” is 12 points wide, and so is an em dash. However, the em dash-technically, a printing term-has nothing to do with the width of a capital “M,” it’s based on an entirely different and dynamic measurement: the point side of the typeface itself. This is a common error that arises from the fact that in many fonts, the capital “M” is the widest letter, often the same width as the em dash. I read on a grammar blog recently that “…the em dash is named after its length-it’s about the same width as the capital letter M.”
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