em dash and en dash in Pages
How do I get to type 'en' dash and 'em' dash using keyboard.
Option + '-' does not work, similarly Option + Shift + '-' also dosent seem to work on my mac book air.
MacBook Air 13″, macOS 14.8
Question marked as
As Yellowbox has suggested, you can launch the character viewer at the point in your text where you want to insert an en or em dash. I suggest that when you single-click on that respective character, you click Add to Favorites. In the future, you just click the Favorites category and your two dash types are there.
You can either drag and drop the character as suggested by Yellowbox, or a rapid double-click will insert it too.
Another approach is to configure two different text replacements in System Settings > Keyboard panel > Text Replacements… These are pair entries (Replace/With) where you click a + symbol to add a replacement item. You could enter ndash for an en dash name, and in the With field, you launch the character viewer and insert the en dash symbol. Add another item with a name mdash and insert an em dash symbol for its character. Click Add, and finally Done.
Looks like this in the Keyboard > Text Replacements panel when you are finished:
Now, when you are typing and want to insert either character, you enter the word ndash or mdash, and a pop-up will float over that location showing the respective dash character and an x (to cancel it). Type any character other than the Esc (also a cancel action) or return key, and the respective dash symbol will be inserted for you.
