Hey there, Does anybody know how to make the em dash using Word on a mac? I've just been using a regular old dash with a space between the words and the dash. And for a while now, I've been noticing that the em dash in novels is longer than a regular dash, and has no spaces, but I haven't found a key on the keyboard to do this. Here's an example of how I've been doing it: I use em dashes pretty frequently - probably more than I should. And I can't just double it up, because it just looks like this --. Anybody know how to do this properly?
Never mind. I got it. For anyone else who wants to know—it's shift, option, dash. Hold all three down and you get —
Word should automatically correct it anyway, if you type a hypen with spaces around it. Open Office does as well, though I think I had to find a setting in the auto correct options and tick it.
That gives an en-dash, not an em-dash (at least with UK English settings). It also only works if you put a space either side of the dash (otherwise it assumes it's a hyphen and leaves it alone), which isn't what you'd want for an em-dash.
So presumably you should remember to turn off the feature in many word processors to replace -- with an en-dash (or maybe not, because there aren't usually spaces either side of an em-dash. If -- is an em-dash in an mss, what does one do for an en-dash? I'm used to using laTeX, which uses -- for en-dash and --- for em-dash. I suppose an en-dash doesn't come up that often in fiction.
Okay, now I'm confused again. If there is a way to write the em dash the way it would appear in a book, why would this not be acceptable in a manuscript? And also, doing a quick google search, you'll find that an em dash is --- while an en dash is -- Can someone clear this up for me?
The only places Google finds for me where an em-dash is '---' relate to TeX and its relatives. That's a particular typesetting program that is much used for technical writing but not for fiction so it's probably not relevant to you. My guess as to why publishers want '--' instead of a real em-dash is that it's what their proof-readers expect (they don't want to have to judge every time whether a dash is an em-dash, an en-dash, a minus sign or a hyphen), and it's probably what their typesetters expect. If you've done much moving of documents between different computer systems you'll know that special characters such as the em-dash are particularly prone to getting corrupted or lost. Unicode makes that better, but it's still better to stick with the ASCII set unless you know what's going to happen to the document. The same would apply to left and right opening quotes, by the way -- Cog, should smart quoting be turned off too?
Manuscript standards derive from typewritten manuscripts, and typewriters don't come with an em-dash. Besides that, it's easier to distinguish - from -- in a manuscript than to try distinguish - from — when surrounded by text, and in some fonts the latter distinction is even harder to see.
Huh, so what is the correct way to use it then? Because I've always just used a long dash - with spaces - like that there. Should it have been a -- with the spaces around it or not or what?
Same here, Mel. So just to clarify, I should be using -- for an em-dash instead of —. And I suppose the very rare en-dash should just be the standard single dash. Is this about right? I just want to put this issue to bed. I've already gone through four chapters changing all my single dashes with spaces around them to an actual em-dash. Now I have to go back to change them to double dashes.
yes, in mss to be submitted, use the double hyphen with no space before or after it, to signify an em dash... there is no need to use an en dash in creative writing and since it's so close to the same size as a hyphen [in some fonts, exactly the same], no one will know which you meant, anyway...
So it should look like this: (scuse the examples, my porn-o-riffic NaNoWriMo is my open document ) ? (I currently have it as: which I'm guessing isn't right?)
