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Comment by amanaplanacanal | Hacker News Reader

They are probably like me: if punctuation isn't on my keyboard, I don't use it.

[AltGr][Shift][-]

Without shift it's an en dash (–), with shift an em dash (—). Default X11 mapping for a German keyboard layout, zero config of mine.

>They are probably like me: if punctuation isn't on my keyboard, I don't use it.

LPT: on Android, pressing and holding a punctuation key on the on-screen keyboard reveals additional variations of it — like the em-dash, for example.

This is the №1 feature I expect everyone to know about (and explore!), but, alas, it doesn't appear to be the case even on Hackernews¹.

On Windows, pressing Win+. pops up an on-screen character keyboard with all the symbols one may need (including math symbols and emojis).

MacOS has a similar functionality IIRC.

And let's not forget that software like MS Word automatically correct dashes to em-dashes when appropriate — and some people may simply prefer typing text in a word processor and copy-pasting from it.

Anyway...

_____

¹ For example, holding "1" yields the superscript version, enabling one to format footnotes properly with less effort than using references in brackets², yet few people choose to do that.

² E.g. [2]

I one of the reasons I love macOS: it is if you hold option.

⸘WHAT‽

Neat, I didn't know there was an upside down interrobang.

Yeah, this is what I don't understand, surely people aren't "using" em dashes deliberately. I assumed MS word was just inserting them automatically when the user used a minus symbol between two words. Kind of like angled quotes.

I've been using em dashes for much longer than transformers have existed. It's easily accessible on at least the Android and macOS keyboards.

> surely people aren't "using" em dashes deliberately

I've had a "trigger finger" for Alt+0151 on Windows since 2010 at least.

When I worked in company that did content marketing and had a lot of writers, one of the coffee mugs they gave to us had Alt+0151 in it!

Em-Dash was really popular with professional writers.

I use them when they're easy to type. For me, that's on Android, macOS, and anywhere I've configured a compose key.

Angled quotes I use only on systems on which I've configured a compose key, or Android when I'm typing Chinese.

I don't like any kind of auto-replacement with physical keyboards, so I turn off "smart quotes" on macOS.

Anyway I use characters like that all the time, but it's never auto-replace.

> surely people aren't "using" em dashes deliberately

I am, it's on the default German X11 keyboard layout. Same for · × ÷ …

And that's without going to the trusty compose key (Caps Lock for me)… wonders like ½ and H₂O await!

update: I read that word will place an em dash if you use two dashes "--"

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