I *Am* An Em Dash Fan! MSFT? Not So Much

In the latest Insider email, they're touting "Windows Key + Minus" to type an Em Dash:

–

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That's actually an En dash.

An Em dash is twice as long.

—

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Eh. It's like when your crazy aunt shows up with a "Best of Meghan Trainor" CD from Target for your kid's birthday party because, you know, everyone likes that Taylor Swift or whatever.

Yes I've spent more time bitching about this then I should.

But I also spent more time on it than MSFT actually did.

What do we do with this information?

pseymour said:

What do we do with this information?

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You've already done more than MSFT.

We're halfway there to having an em dash. Then we can all pretend we're AI.

Son, I was using Em dashes before anyone could spell AI.

WIN + hyphen produces an en dash WIN + hypen hyphen produces an em dash

- hyphen
– en dash
–– em dash

good for horizontal lines too.

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In addition:

Starting with Windows 11 build 262100.6725 (24H2), Microsoft is adding a new keyboard shortcut to make it easier for you to insert an En dash (–) or Em dash (—) while typing anywhere in Windows. Going forward, pressing WIN + Minus (-) will insert En dash, and WIN + Shift + Minus (-) will insert Em dash. Note – if you have Magnifier running, WIN + Minus (-) will still zoom out Magnifier, rather than inserting an En dash.

kelper said:

WIN + hyphen produces an en dash WIN + hypen hyphen produces an em dash

–– em dash

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Not to be That Guy (too late!), but that's not an em dash - it's just two en dashes smushed together. If the justification is funny, or if it gets exported into certain typesetting-ish environments, it will break. It's a good workaround if you have total control over finished output, or if it doesn't much matter.

- minus
– Win+minus
— Win+Shift+minus

View attachment 164354 Bill+Linus

Please someone find the ViveTool ID to save us!!!!

Alonzo Mosley said:

Son, I was using Em dashes before anyone could spell AI.

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In 1976, long before the first Apple and MS-DOS/Windows computers, I used Em-dashes and Em-spaces in the Linotype typographical system I was maintaining!

pseymour said:

View attachment 164354 Bill+Linus

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Windsock Proxy

Kees said:

In 1976, long before the first Apple and MS-DOS/Windows computers, I used Em-dashes and Em-spaces in the Linotype typographical system I was maintaining!

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The Linotypes where you had two floppy drives, and every time you changed fonts, you had to swap out one of the 8" discs?

Alonzo Mosley said:

The Linotypes where you had two floppy drives, and every time you changed fonts, you had to swap out one of the 8" discs?

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No, the Lintotype system was around a central computer (Prime 100), two dual CDC disk drives as big as 80 MByte (they had the size of a tablemodel refrigerator, fixed disk 40 MB in the lower part, removable disk 40 MB in the top part).

A full room of typing ladies on special keyboards with paper tape punchers and about 10 (online) editing terminals with monitor. Text that had been coded on those terminals was sent to the central computer to be hyphenated and justified.

Online coupled typesetter was the Linotype 303, which is described here. It could be used with photographic paper or film, had font grids and needed much maintenance. It had it's own computer (a Prime 100 as well) to control the typesetting process.

The system had a professional taperecorder in order to save the text/layout of books in digital form. That functioned like you sometimes see in films about older computer systems: it rolled forwards and backwards to find the right track of the book that was searched. For that time it was quite fast.

The company printed many magazines and books and so a rather big typesetting system was needed.

I don't remember the specifics - I do remember all the annoying hyphenating and justifying.

IIRC, the imported WordStar files were on one 8" disc and the font files were on the other. Yes, dedicated terminal. Yes, printed to photo paper (in a light-tight cartridge).

When I took over in 1988 and replaced that all with Mac SEs (with TWENTY MEG hard drives!!!!!!!) and 600 dpi printers, you would have thought I shot someone's dog.

ETA: I just played 20 questions with ChatGPT and, while *I'm* convinced it was a Linotype machine, it sure looks like they were Compugraphic EditWriter 7500s. I must have used the Mergenthalers at a different newspaper. I can picture all their propaganda on the wall....