—Em dash symbol
— is the Em dash character. It is text, not a picture — it takes the colour of the type around it and pastes into anything.
- Unicode
- U+2014
- Alt code
- Alt+8212
- HTML
- —
- Unicode name
- Em Dash
Where the Em dash symbol comes from
The em dash is named for its width: one em, historically the width of a capital M in the current type size. It is one of a family measured the same way — the en dash is half as wide, the hyphen shorter still — and the distinction dates back to metal type, where each was a physical block.
A break in a sentence stronger than a comma and less formal than a colon. British style usually sets it with spaces, American style without: “the answer — obvious in hindsight — was no”.
Em dash symbol codes
Copy whichever form your tool expects. The character behind them does not change.
How to type — on any keyboard
Four ways, depending on what you are working in.
Will — actually show up?
We checked 147 fonts installed on a normal machine and counted how many of them contain this character. A symbol missing from a font is drawn as an empty box — the text is still correct, it just cannot be drawn.
Safe everywhere. This one is in almost every font ever installed, including the defaults on Windows, Mac and Android.
Symbols people confuse with —
Close enough to be mistaken for it, and still a different code point every time.
Other typographic marks
Relatives of this character. Each has its own page with origin, typing and font coverage.
Punctuation
Dashes, quotes, bullets, daggers and the marks between them.