1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. Guides

How to type an em dash on a Mac

By
The keyboard and trackpad of the MacBook Pro.
Luke Larsen / Digital Trends

The em dash (—) punctuation is a useful stylization in writing and editing that can replace a comma, colon, or parenthesis. Accessing this symbol on a computer can be challenging, depending on the operating system.

The Windows operating system has several built-in and program-associated methods for typing or pulling up the em dash into a word processor or text box. However, macOS is well known for having a system integrated methods of accessing the em dash — some you may know and some that might not be as obvious.

Recommended Videos

Keyboard

Apple has made inserting an em dash into your text very simple with a keyboard shortcut. Press the Shift (⇧) + Option (⌥) + Minus (-) keys on your keyboard, and the em dash will appear in your word processor or text box automatically.

This keyboard shortcut is program agnostic, so you can use it in a Windows environment, Google space, or any third-party text area, in addition to Mac applications.

Menu bar

Apple

An alternate option is to select the em dash accent from the macOS character viewer, which is located in the drop-down Menu bar at the top of your desktop screen. Select Edit > Emoji & Symbols.

If you’re only seeing emojis, click the small icon in the upper-right corner to expand the window to Character View. Select the Punctuation option in the side menu. Find the em dash, which will be detailed by name on the right once you’ve selected a character. Double-click it to insert it into your word processor or text box.

Search engine

After exploring the other em dash typing methods for macOS, this one might seem a bit pointless. Even so, you can search the term “em dash” in your search engine of choice, copy the symbol, and paste it into your word processor or text box.

Often, the primary search result will be a definition of “em dash,” which includes the proper symbol in parenthesis. This is the case in the Apple Safari browser. Typically, an em dash is not used often in a text, but if you need it again, you can copy and paste it from the original punctuation you pasted.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Fionna Agomuoh
Computing Writer
Fionna Agomuoh is a technology journalist with over a decade of experience writing about various consumer electronics topics…
How an iPad just set a Geekbench record

Apple’s M4 chip is already setting records thanks to the help of an unconventional cooling method: liquid nitrogen. Apple’s latest ARM-based chip made its debut on the 2024 iPad Pro tablets earlier this month, which outperforms its predecessors and rival high-end desktop processors in terms of raw performance.

As reported on by Tom's Hardware, the team at Geekerwan carried out the experiment using a Kingpin Cooling T-Rex Rev 4 CPU LN2 pot and slapping it to the back of the iPad Pro. When subjected to extreme cooling using liquid nitrogen, the M4 chip managed to go past the 4000-point barrier in Geekbench 6's single-core benchmark. This achievement places it well ahead of some of the most powerful chips on the market, including Apple’s own M3 Max and the M2 Ultra.

Read more
Stop using these default Mac apps — trust me

Apple makes a huge variety of its own Mac apps, and some of them are among the best Mac apps you can get. The problem is that while many of them are pretty excellent, that’s not the case for every last one -- some are middling while others are worth avoiding altogether.

Whatever the case, you might be looking for an alternative to Apple’s built-in Mac apps. Here, we’ve catalogued the apps we think you should replace first, and suggested which third-party apps you should swap them out for. That should bring you more features and an all-around better Mac experience.
Calculator (use PCalc instead)
The PCalc app in macOS Sonoma Digital Trends

Read more
How to connect an iPhone to a Mac with or without a cable

When you connect your iPhone to your Mac computer, you’ll be able to access several features and settings. Whether you’d like to upload or offload media from your Mac to your iOS device, or you’d like to download a firmware update for your iPhone, you’ll be able to do so by connecting your smartphone to your Mac with a Lightning or USB-C cable. You can also link your iPhone to your Mac wirelessly, and our guide will provide you with detailed instructions for both wired and wireless connection methods.

Here’s a guide on how to connect your device to a Mac, with or without a USB-C or Lightning cable attached.

Read more