How to put a dash in Word

Often the question arises when writing any articles or term papers, how to put a dash in a Word or in any text editor. Everyone knows where the hyphen is, so it is often used. Although there are no specific rules for this, it is still better to use a dash.

Turns out, there are 3 different types of dashes(long (-), medium (-) and "electronic" (-)) and at least 5 ways to insert them. In this article, we will analyze not only situations for the Microsoft Word program, but also some methods can be applied in any text or HTML document.

Five different insertion methods - choose the one that suits you best

1. AutoCorrect in Word.

The Microsoft Office Word program, by default, replaces the hyphen with a dash in the following situation: you type, for example, the following text “The verb is” and at the moment when you put a space after the word “it”, the hyphen will be replaced by a dash. That is, it turns out: "The verb is".

AutoCorrect happens when a hyphen has a space on either side, but if it's just a word where it's used, like "somewhere", then of course AutoCorrect won't work.

2. Use of hexadecimal codes.

If autocorrect did not happen, then you can put a dash yourself using the dialed numbers and keyboard shortcuts.

In Word, simply type the number 2014 and press the key combination alt + x (x). The number 2014 will be replaced with an em dash. The number 2013 will be replaced by a dash in a shorter way, and 2012 by an even smaller one.

3. A way to insert a dash for any text editor.

Hold the Alt key and type 0151 using the numeric keypad, release the Alt key. An em dash will appear where you placed the cursor.

This method is suitable even if you are typing text not in Microsoft Word, but in any html editor.

4. Using hotkeys.

If you have an additional "numeric" keyboard on your keyboard, you can press Ctrl + - (Ctrl + minus sign) or ctrl + alt + - (em dash).

5. Through the "Insert Symbol" menu.

Go to the "Insert" menu in Word

On the right we find the button "Symbol"

By clicking on it, a tab will drop out on which you need to select "Other symbols"

We will open a window with many different characters

In order not to look for a dash among them, you can simply go to the "Special characters" tab. Select an em dash there, click "insert" and it will be put in your document.

As it turns out, everything is very simple. We hope that this article will help you write your texts even more correctly.