---
title: "Em dash, en dash and hyphen — which one, when"
description: "Three marks that look alike and mean different things, plus the ellipsis. Which to use, how to space them, and how to type each one on any keyboard."
source: https://usegalley.com/resources/dashes-hyphens-and-ellipses
---
[Home](https://usegalley.com/) [Resources](https://usegalley.com/resources) Dashes and hyphens

# Dashes, hyphens and ellipses

Three marks that look almost the same on screen and mean entirely different things, plus the one that says a voice has faded out. Which to use, how to space it, and how to type it.

### The four marks

Set here in a book face, at size, because that is the only way the widths tell them apart. In a monospace they are identical.

| Mark | Name | Job |
| --- | --- | --- |
| - | Hyphen | Joins words into one idea. The narrowest of the three. |
| – | En dash | Spans a range or links two things. As wide as an n. |
| — | Em dash | Breaks a sentence open, or cuts a speaker off. As wide as an m. |
| … | Ellipsis | Marks something trailing off, or left out. |

### Hyphen

| Compound before a noun | a well-lit room, but the room was well lit. The hyphen only appears when the pair sits in front of the noun. |
| --- | --- |
| Never after an adverb ending in -ly | a badly lit room. The -ly already says how the words connect. |
| Compound numbers | thirty-one, two-thirds. |
| To avoid a misreading | re-cover against recover. a man-eating fish against a man eating fish. |
| Prefixes | Usually closed up. Keep the hyphen before a capital or a repeated vowel: anti-American, re-enter. |

### En dash

| Number ranges | pages 34–70, 1914–18. No spaces. |
| --- | --- |
| Not with "from" or "between" | from 1914 to 1918, never from 1914–1918. |
| Connections between equals | the London–Paris train, the author–editor relationship. |
| Compounds containing a space | a post–Civil War novel, where a hyphen would bind only to "Civil". |
| British parenthetical dash | Spaced, in place of an em dash. See below. |

### Em dash

| A break in thought | She had one answer—and it was no. Harder than a comma, softer than a full stop. |
| --- | --- |
| A parenthetical | The house—the one with the blue door—was empty. Louder than brackets, which whisper. |
| An interruption in speech | “But I thought you—” No full stop after it. |
| Before an attribution | Under a quoted epigraph. |
| How many | Two in a sentence at most, and rarely two sentences running. It is a loud mark and it stops working when it is everywhere. |

### Spaced or closed up

| Case | American | British |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Parenthetical break | one answer—and it was no | one answer – and it was no |
| Which mark | Em dash, closed up | En dash, spaced, usually |
| Ranges | En dash, closed up | En dash, closed up |

British practice is not settled. Plenty of UK houses use a closed-up em dash. Pick one and hold it for the whole book.

### Ellipsis

| Trailing off | “I suppose, if you really…” A fade, where a dash would be a cut. |
| --- | --- |
| A pause | Sparingly. An ellipsis in every other line of dialogue reads as hesitation, not tension. |
| Omission in a quotation | Marks words left out of quoted material. |
| After a full sentence | She stopped. … Then she went on. The full stop and the ellipsis are both there. |
| Use the character | One …, not three full stops, so it cannot break across a line. |

### How to type them

| Mark | Mac | Windows |
| --- | --- | --- |
| En dash – | Option and hyphen | Alt and 0150 |
| Em dash — | Shift, Option and hyphen | Alt and 0151 |
| Ellipsis … | Option and semicolon | Alt and 0133 |

## Why this matters more in print than on screen

A hyphen standing in for a dash is barely visible in a browser and obvious in
a typeset book, because a book uses a real book face where the three widths
are genuinely different. The place people find out is the printed proof, which
is the most expensive place to find out anything.

Galley's consistency sweep flags hyphens doing a dash's job and straight
marks that should be curled, across the whole manuscript rather than the
chapter you happen to be reading. See [revision](https://usegalley.com/docs/revision).

**For reference, not instruction.** Publishers, agencies and
competitions each keep their own house style, and their guidelines win over
anything on this page.
Checked in August 2026 against [the Chicago Manual of Style](https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/).
Whichever you pick, apply it to the whole book.

## Questions

What is the difference between a hyphen, an en dash and an em dash? A hyphen joins words. An en dash, the width of an n, spans a range: 1914 to 1918, London to Paris. An em dash, the width of an m, breaks a sentence open the way a bracket or a colon would. They are three different characters and a word processor will not choose between them for you.

Should an em dash have spaces around it? American publishing closes it up with no spaces. British publishing usually uses a spaced en dash instead of an em dash entirely. Both are correct within their own house style, and mixing them in one book is the only real mistake.

How do I type an em dash? On a Mac, Shift and Option and hyphen. On Windows, Alt and 0151 on the number pad, or Ctrl and Alt and the minus key on the number pad in Word. Most editors also turn two hyphens into a dash on their own.

How many dots in an ellipsis? Three, always. Use the single ellipsis character rather than three full stops so it cannot be broken across a line. If a sentence ends and then trails off you get four marks on the page: the full stop and the ellipsis.

## Next

[Dialogue punctuationWhere the interruption dash actually lives.](https://usegalley.com/resources/dialogue-punctuation-rules) [UK vs US styleThe rest of what the two styles disagree on.](https://usegalley.com/resources/uk-vs-us-style) [Anatomy of a book pageWhere a stray hyphen becomes visible.](https://usegalley.com/resources/anatomy-of-a-book-page)

More at [the resources index](https://usegalley.com/resources).

Knowing the rule is one thing. Galley applies it across the whole book.

[Launch Galley](https://app.usegalley.com)