How can I type an em-dash (—)?

Question

The title pretty much says it all: how can I type an em-dash (—)?

Answer 1

• Ctrl+Shift+U, then 2 0 1 4 and Enter

• Ctrl+Shift+U+2014

Control-capital-u means Unicode, and the four-digit hexadecimal number for em dash (or any other Unicode character) can be found via the Character Map in Ubuntu (gucharmap).

The first option allows you to separately type the correct digits for your character, which appears upon hitting Enter or Space. You can also edit the numbers you typed using backspace before pressing Return.

Answer 2

I could not find a way to type it using AltGr and default settings, but I found another way:

1. Go to System -> Preferences -> Keyboard.

2. Select the Layouts tab.

3. Click Options.

4. Under Compose Key Position (drop-down), choose a key to use for composing — I chose the Right Win (right Windows key).

5. Now press and release the compose key, then type --- to get the em-dash.

[Here's a list of more characters you can type this way.]

---

UPDATE: As of Ubuntu 12.04

1. Go to System Settings > Keyboard.

2. Under Typing tab, select Layout Settings link (at the bottom of the dialog box).

3. Click Options.

4. Under Compose key position (drop-down), choose a key to use for composing — I chose the Right Win (right Windows key).

5. Now press and release the compose key, then type --- to get the em-dash.

Answer 3

1. Go to Applications->Accessories->Character Map.

   

2. Click Search->Find

   

3. Type 'em dash' and click 'Find Next'

   

4. Double click the symbol, which will put it in the 'Text to Copy' box at the bottom.

   

5. You can then copy-and-paste it where you want it.

   

Answer 4

The following keyboard layouts contain the em dash:

$ sgrep -o '%r\n' '"\"" _quote_ "\"" in ("name[Group1]" .. "\n" in outer("{" .. "}" containing "emdash"))' /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/??
Azerbaijan
Bulgaria
Bulgaria - Traditional phonetic
Switzerland - German (Macintosh)
Germany
Germany - Neo 2
Finland
France - Bepo, ergonomic, Dvorak way
France - Macintosh
Ireland
Iceland - Macintosh
Iceland - Dvorak
Latvia
Mongolia
Norway
Norway - Northern Saami
Ukraine
USA - Macintosh
USA - Colemak

Personally, I use Colemak, in which the em dash is AltGr+Shift+-.

Answer 5

I prefer remapping one of my lesser-used keys to an em-dash so that I don't have to type a crazy combination of keys in order to get it.

1. Identify a key you don't mind remapping. My laptop has a second backslash key, so I used that.
2. Find the keycode for that key using xev. Run xev from a terminal, and press the key, paying attention to the keycode that pops up. When I press my key, for instance, I get state 0x0, keycode 94 (keysym 0x3c, less), same_screen YES,, so I know my keycode is 94.
3. Assign the emdash to that keycode using xmodmap. I run xmodmap -e "keycode 94 = emdash ellipsis" because I also want to assign Shift+backspace to the ellipsis character.
4. Figure out a way to get xmodmap to run on startup. This is the part I'm unsure about. I think it involves editing ~/.Xmodmap, but there's some debate about this, apparently.

Answer 6

To get xmodmap to run on startup in Ubuntu 12.10, Go to Dash Home. Type in Startup. Click on Startup Applications. Click Add. In the "add startup program" window, give it a name. In the command box, enter: xmodmap -e "keycode 94 = emdash ellipsis"

Then, click on Add. You'll see the program name you just gave this under startup applications. Close the windows. The command will run the next time you start the computer. (I just spent a week and many hours reading these posts here and finally figured it out on my own.) This might not be the best way to do this, but it works.