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The
Difference In Dashes Hyphens are those small little dashes that exist between hyphenated words (vector-drawing, for example) or when a word is hyphenated for the purpose of breaking a long word up. The character key is located near the delete key on your keyboard. En Dashes are the parts of punctuation which indicate a duration. Usually it's a duration of time (9:00 – 5:00, Monday – Thursday) but can also be used for other purposes as well (Boston – Los Angeles route). The rule is that you use an en dash in place of the word "to." The en dash gets its name from being the same width as that of a capital "N." An en dash can be created on the Macintosh by pressing the hyphen and the option keys on the keyboard. It can be found as a special character on the Windows platform. Em Dashes are longer than en dashes which is appropriate since they are used for different purposes. Em dashes are typically used in place of colons and parenthesis — they indicate a change in thought. The equivalent on an old-fashioned typewriter was to use two hyphens together (--). But, since em dashes are available, two hyphens are no longer correct. The em dash was named because it occupies the same amount of space as a capital "M." You can find the em dash on the Macintosh keyboard by pressing the hyphen key with the shift and option keys. It can be found as a special character on the Windows platform. As far as spacing around these dashes, there is no need for spaces around
plain-old hyphens. There is a disagreement on whether you should put a
space on either side of an en dash or an em dash. Most people feel that
there shouldn't be spaces but I think that it looks far nicer with additional
spaces around them ( as you can see in this article). However you choose
to go, be consistent throughout your documents and use the correct dash
for your purposes. Tip: Want info on Graphic Design classes near you? Visit our guide of top design schools.  Some
Links You May Find Useful
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hat
most of us know about the use of dashes dates back, for the most part,
to our use of typewriters. Our writing classes in high school probably
didn't touch on the subject at all which accounts for some of the confusion.
Here's the skinny on where you should use different dashes and hyphens.
