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Comment by CallMeJim | Hacker News Reader

I upvoted solely for the use of an en dash ( – ) in the title, instead of a hyphen ( - ).

Probably comes down to personal aesthetics, but I find it looks so much nicer!

For users on Windows, I recommend setting up an AutoHotKey script to convert the string "==-" to "–", and "===-" to "—".

Easy to type, very intuitive (typing more characters gives a longer-width dash), and gives your carefully crafted email missives a lingering, hard-to-describe dash of style!

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Alternatively: -- and ---. Some operating system (like iOS) even automatically convert to – and — for you.

I use espanso, and replicate my config between mac and win with syncthing. My system is to put every expansion pattern within colons:

:y: => thumbs up emoji

::): => smiley

:endash: => –

:emdash: => —

I don't know why I hadn't thought of using :--: and :---:, I'm setting that up now, thanks!

On Mac, it is Alt Minus and Alt Shift Minus

> For users on Windows

I recommend WinCompose: https://github.com/samhocevar/wincompose

Slightly harder to remember, but you can also press Alt+0150 for an en dash or Alt+0151 for an em dash. Works on any machine without any third-party software or configuration!

Can also just use Winkey + . to open the Emoji picker that has a unicode section with the – and — em if you press the Ω icon

From a typographic standpoint, the en-dash isn’t even the right one to use. :) It’s supposed to be a connective of sorts, for ranges or directions.

Interesting! Is the below correct? For connecting-words, use a hyphen. For 1 – 5 ranges, use an en dash. For dramatic pauses — use an em dash.

Yeah, afaik that's right. To my knowledge, the en dash is raised in some fonts compared to the other ones, so that it aligns better with numbers—which are usually always ‘uppercase’.

Linux users can set up a compose key and the default is Compose, -, -, . for – (en-dash) and Compose, -, -, - for — (em-dash).

WinCompose also works great on Windows.

https://github.com/samhocevar/wincompose

Windows also has some limited built-in Compose Key/Dead Key (AltGr) support, but it's baked into the Keyboard Layout and very Keyboard Layout specific with some layouts doing a better job than others and no easy ways to copy them to other layouts. (For instance, Colemak's layout on Windows provides a handful of common punctuation/symbols: https://colemak.com/Multilingual)

WinCompose does look like an interesting general option. There's also an open issue asking about adding the idea to the applicable Windows PowerToy: https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/6976

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