[Improve your grammar] How to type a dash

In practice, many people use hyphens where they need to use dashes. But if you learn how to type dashes correctly, it will add a more professional feel to anything you write. 

So what’s the difference?

What’s the difference between a hyphen and a dash?

Here’s a hyphen –
And here’s a dash –

Most of us don’t normally type out a dash. We normally type a hyphen and rely on our text editor to change it into a dash for us.

Unfortunately, text editors are not perfect at turning hyphens into dashes when you need them to. 

If you find you need to type a dash, in Windows you create one by holding the Alt key and then typing 0150 on the numeric keypad. (You can learn to do this quickly and automatically, trust us!)

On a Mac, press the ⌥ and – keys together. On an iPhone, you can type a dash by holding down the hyphen key and selecting the dash that pops up right next to it.

On an Android device, it will depend on your default keyboard. Some (like my phone, sadly!) will force you to use a hyphen, as there’s simply no way of typing a dash. 

The long and short of it

There are actually two types of dash – a long one and a short one.

The long one is called an em-dash and looks like this: —
The short one is called an en-dash and looks like this: –

Both dashes do exactly the same thing. At Emphasis, we use the shorter en-dash, as it’s used most extensively in British English – and we’re based in Great Britain.

Which you see most will depend on where what you’re reading was originally published. US English publications tend to use the longer em-dash. Everything we’ve said about the en-dash applies to the em-dash. The only exception is that you don’t put any spaces around an em-dash—like this.