It seems like I use the em dash (—) a lot more than I use some characters that traditionally have spots on the keyboard (^,`, |). It's annoying when I'm not writing on Word and I want to use an em dash. I have to copy and paste it from another location. There's probably some kind of keyboard shortcut assigned to the —, but that's too cumbersome. I want a key that does this —————— when I press it six times.
-- DrWorm, May 22 2010

The Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator http://msdn.microso...lobal/bb964665.aspx
(This doesn't seem to work with Windows 7) [ldischler, May 22 2010]

So either buy a Mac keyboard for your pc, which, as Ian points out, has a shortcut for the em dash, or redefine your keyboard using the free Layout Creator (see link).
-- ldischler, May 22 2010


I have seen eighteenth century printed books which use the underscore for this purpose _ an interesting alternative to the em dash.
-- pocmloc, May 22 2010


— and of course, I hardly need to mention how useful “em” and “en” are in Scrabble…
-- hippo, May 22 2010


I thought this was going to be a key for giving someone a bun.
-- nomocrow, May 23 2010


Try "Ctrl" and the Num-pad "-". Works in Word on my PC, but I guess you already knew that, 'cos it doesn't work in notepad.
-- Ling, May 23 2010


@[Ian Tindale]— Thanks!
-- DrWorm, May 24 2010


Download AutoHotKey and write your own script to convert "------" to "—"
-- kevinthenerd, Jun 01 2010


Here's your AutoHotKey script (without requiring an end-key to trigger it since you normally have no space, period, or enter after an m-dash).

:*:------::—
-- kevinthenerd, Jun 01 2010


Hotkeys are good, but the problem still rears its ugly head when you try to type on a smartphone.
-- DrWorm, Jun 02 2010


I defined -= as an en dash and =-= as an em dash, in Microsoft Word's autocorrect as you type. I find this convenient.
-- phundug, Jun 03 2010



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