Hi ,
Welcome to Font School! Everyone grab your sharpened #2 pencils. It's time for a pop quiz. In this image, which of the hyphens is correct? (a), (b), or (c)? Got your answer written down?
The answer, as you probably guessed, is (a), but do you know why the answer is (a)? In the world of fontography, there are actually three different types of hyphens, or dashes.
The first choice here (a) illustrates a standard dash. You would use it to hyphenate words or clusters of words. To get a standard dash, simply press the hyphen key. That's easy enough. But what about the other two?
Choice (b) illustrates an "en dash". This dash is twice as long as the standard dash and is used so show the duration of time (ie. 2007-2009 or March-July). Typing an "en dash" is simply a matter of a memorized shortcut. PC users type Alt-0150. Mac users can simply press Opt Hyphen. By the way, it's called an "en" dash because the dash is roughly the length of a letter n.
An "em dash" is what you see in the last choice. This honking long dash is used to separate a thought within a sentence. PC users can get the "em dash" by typing Alt-0151. Mac users press Opt Shift Hyphen. And you guessed it, the "em dash" is called that because the dash itself is approximately the length of the letter m. I would use an em dash in this sentence: Jen's nieces--daughters of Heather--love to bake cookies.
Ok, gotta dash! Glad to have had you in class. Have a great week, friend.
Jen White
jen@digitalscrapper.com
Header: Created with the August 2012 Premier kit, Carefree by Amanda Heimann. Photo by Marzanna Syncerz. 
