What’s the difference between an en dash and em dash?

There are hyphens. Then there are dashes. There’s the en dash. And there’s the em dash.

These diddy lines can cause all sorts of confusion when you’re writing your copy. (If you spot them at all.)

At a glance, you might not notice the difference between these three punctuation marks. And even if you do, they’re not the easiest things to add in when you actually want to use them.

A fine line

Before I break down the difference between an en dash and an em dash, let’s rule out the smallest of the three symbols.

Here’s the hyphen: /-/

It’s used to create a compound word. It gathers two words together and snuggles them in without any spaces. We need these so there’s no uncertainty and confusion in meaning.

Compare these...

Is Brenda living her best life with some extra marital sex? Lucky Carol! After 18 years together, they’re gearing things up again.

Or is Brenda having extra-marital sex? I bet it’s with Tabitha. From book club.

We’re not looking at these here, so head over to how to use hyphens.

Cut a dash

Now over to the two confusers.

This is the em dash: /—/

It’s around the width of an ‘m’ and there are no spaces either side. It’s predominantly used in American English so you’ll see it in US style guides.

Here are the three ways you’ll likely see it used.

Rule 1: When more emphasis is needed than a pair of commas, or just like a pair of brackets. We don’t use this so much in UK English now.

► Book club—more like wine club—was every Wednesday night.

Rule 2: An aside or afterthought.

►Last week’s book was Tipping the Velvet—she preferred Fingersmith.

Rule 3: This is used by both UK and US English to show a sudden break in speech.

► “But Tabitha is just a—”

And here’s the en dash: /–/

Not a shocker, it’s the width of an ‘n’.

In UK English, we’ve ditched the em dash unless it’s for punctuating speech. Instead, our style guides mainly use the en dash with a space either side. It makes it easier to read. You can use them to replace the em dash in rules 1 and 2 above.

Rule 1: For more emphasis than commas or brackets.

► Book club – more like wine club – was every Wednesday night.

Rule 2: An aside or afterthought.

► Last week’s book was Tipping the Velvet – she preferred Fingersmith.

Rule 3: It’s also used with no spaces to show an inclusive range. A ‘from and to’ situation.

► Book club was 7–10pm.

Rule 4: We don’t use ‘from’ or ‘between’ with an en dash. If you want to use those then you need a ‘to’ between the range instead.

► Book club ran from 7pm to 10pm.

How it ends up slapdash

A Word doc tries to make it easy for you to type the symbol you need. Here’s how to automatically swap a hyphen to a dash as you type.

► For an em dash type: word/number > hyphen > hyphen > word/number

tiny--symbols becomes tiny—symbols

► For an en dash type: word/number > space > hyphen > space > word/number

1999 - 2001 becomes 1999 – 2001

BUT… that date range punctuation is wrong.

The ‘from and to’ ranges that use an en dash with numbers shouldn’t have a space either side. This autotyping in Word only works well if we want to use an en dash with words that are have spaces, like brackets, but not for ranges or cut-off speech.

Keep an eye on what Word’s up to without you knowing.

And G docs…? I’ve not included anything on that right now because it’s playing up for me, so I can’t easily confirm it and don’t want to give you the wrong info. I only proofread in Word as that’s how I use my proofreading tools.

Choose your character

You can also insert the symbol manually. Head to Insert on the toolbar. Click Symbol in Word or Special Characters in Google Docs. Look for the dashes.

It’s not always easy to tell which dash is which. If you hover over or click on it then it’ll tell you one of three things:

► En dash: symbol #45 | unicode U+2013 | ‘combining short stroke overlay’

► Em dash: symbol #190 | unicode U+2014 | ‘combining long stroke overlay’

Work it on the web

If you’re writing online content, chances are you’ll already have written it in a doc to copy over. Top choice as it’s easiest to copy and paste dashes. Otherwise, you need to add one of these two character codes in HTML or markdown:

► En dash: – | –

► Em dash: — | —

The punctuation. The point?

For those that know the difference between a hyphen, en dash and em dash, it makes it easier to follow the flow of a sentence. When we see something that’s not expected, it’s a distraction from the message.

And if you’re writing white papers, reports, research or other high-investment documents? Don’t risk all that input and insight. When accuracy and credibility matter, it’s worth getting the details right.

Mad dash

Just like any other punctuation, dashes are there to clearly communicate so we easily understand.

But the bigger challenge isn’t just knowing when to use an en dash, em dash or hyphen (that’d be way too easy). It’s making sure the right symbol, spacing and punctuation choices have been applied correctly throughout those important documents you’ve been trusted to produce.