Now when I do it, I get three em dashes with little gaps in between them instead of a seamless 3-em dash.
Three em dashes indicate the absence of an entire word.
To type a hyphen in html or Microsoft Word, just press the hyphen key. The em dash can be made in Microsoft Word by pressing CTRL + ALT + the minus sign -, located on the keypad.
The length of an em dash comes from width of a traditional typesetter’s capital letter M—that’s how the dash gets its name. Wider still is the em-dash, which is just as wide as a lowercase m. The em-dash is typically used in sentences, such as a dash between clauses. In this use, it is sometimes doubled. Alternatively, you can insert these special characters using the … Em dashes differ from other hyphens and dashes not only in usage, which we will discuss shortly, but also in appearance. Word allows you to insert an em dash (a long dash) by simply typing two dashes in a row. Don’t add spaces around an em dash.
If you are looking for an easy way to type this em dash in Word, you’ve come to the right place. Few punctuation marks have the spunky personality of an em dash.
Otherwise, look for an “insert symbol” command. Em dashes can replace parentheses, commas, colons, and even semi-colons.
Another way to insert the dashes is to use the minus key on the numeric keypad.
The em dash also acts as the longest stop or pause in a sentence compared to the other three dashes, which all serve to join parts of sentences rather than break up a sentence and stop the reader. Thank you. My son—where has he gone?—would like to meet you. The em dash has another job.
When you need more of a separation between words and phrases, though, you’ll need either an en dash or an em dash, depending on the context.
Word senses this as you finished the word following the dashes, and then replaces them with the em dash. This thread is locked. As you can see, it works here; but in Word, the 2-em dash comes out with em dashes with a space in the middle (— —), and in a 3-em dash (— — —). It is significantly longer than the hyphen. The en dash is slightly longer than the hyphen but not as long as the em dash. I've tested in Word 2016 as well which demonstrates the same behavior. Typically, two em dashes represent the absence of one or more letters in a word. Use one em dash on each side of a phrase embedded in a sentence. The En Dash.
There are three ways you can do this:
Many word processors will automatically insert an em dash when you type a pair of hyphens.
I know the keyboard shortcut for an em dash is Ctrl-Alt-Minus, but I used to be able to enter three of these as a keyboard shortcut for a 3-em dash, and Word would autoformat them to be seamless. However, on most web editors—Wordpress, Twitter, or Facebook for example—those two hyphens don’t magically become em-dashes.
If you’re using a word processor, like Microsoft Word, you can also type double hyphens next to each other to produce an em dash. Example The information in your spreadsheet—numbers, formulas, and text—is stored in cells.
Otherwise, look for an “insert symbol” command. Typically, two em dashes represent the absence of one or more letters in a word.