When using Word 365 I am trying to insert an Em Dash. With this setting off you need to use Option + Shift + - to type an em-dash, which is another built-in OS X keyboard shortcut. I have a new laptop from Microsoft that does not have a numeric keypad. The history behind straight and curly quotes is very similar to the em-dash/hyphen story. This setting also keeps OS X from turning straight quotes into curly quotes-aka turning "fancy" into “fancy”. Uncheck this box and OS X will no longer replace two hyphens with an em-dash. On OS X El Capitan there’s a “Use smart quotes and dashes” check box in the System Preferences > Keyboard > Text menu. OS X takes this a step further and implements this convention at an operating system level, which is great when you’re writing the next great novel, and not so great when you just want to type npm -help.
Because of this inconvenience, word processing software has preserved the convention popularized in the typewriter days: automatically changing two hyphens into an em-dash. Nowadays we obviously have computers, but our keyboards still have no key to type an em-dash.
In the day of the typewriter you actually couldn’t type an em-dash at all, so a convention was invented: using two hyphens in place of an em-dash. Depending on the context, the em dash can take the place of commas, parentheses, or colons-in each case to slightly different effect.”Įm-dashes are really commonly used in writing of all sorts, but they’ve always been a bit of a pain to type. “The em dash is perhaps the most versatile punctuation mark. I’ll let an actual grammar site give a good explanation of what em-dashes are: You only need a single keyboard shortcut. It’s not immediately apparent, but typing an em dash on macOS is more straightforward and simple than on other platforms. If typing two hyphens and a space or character does not insert.
Scrivener for Mac uses Apple’s Smart Quotes and Dashes. The two hyphens will morph into an em dash. The easiest way to insert an em dash in Scrivener for Mac is to hit the hyphen key twice, then either a character or space. The em dash shortcut for Mac is Comand+M. Near the bottom of the emoji keyboard, you’ll see the em dash and en dash characters next to each other. Insert an em dash in Scrivener for Mac with a shortcut. However, if you want this symbol on Mac, there’s a shortcut for you. It’s subtle, but OS X is replacing nativescript -version with nativescript -version, or more specifically, it’s converting - (two hyphens) into - (an em-dash). The alt code method works fine on the Windows PC. Have you ever been typing in your email client, or some other OS X application, and had this happen: This is an article for all command-line users on OS X.