Keyboard layout specific. Macs with their default English layout use “option-shift-dash” which is really easy to remember (and relatively discoverable, as such things go) which is why using proper m-dashes (not just double-dashes) used to be a strong indicator a poster was using a Mac, before LLMs took the character over.

On iOS you type it by pressing dash and holding until alternative options come up, same way you type e.g. accented characters.

Macs have two possible ways. If you have key repeat enabled, option+shift+dash. Some newer Mac users may have the mode on where holding a key pops up an iOS-style bubble of alternate options, in which case they will just hold hyphen.

That "new" feature has been around since at least 2011.

You can also just type two "-" minuses on iOS. So "--" will auto-convert to "—".

In emacs, c-x 8 RET prompts you for unicode character names (or hex) so for rare use you can just spell it out. There's also C-x 8 _ m for em dash and C-x 8 _ n for en dash. (Hit c-x 8 c-h to get a full list of those bindings, like any normal secondary map - they're about as idiosyncratic as the XCompose bindings, but you might find some of them "stick" in your head better (I personally like "C-x 8 1 / 2" better than "Compose 1 2" even if it's a lot more typing...)

Ooh, thanks! I blindly type c-x 8 RET, then finding myself stumbling through 9 different entries for Phi, but I hadn't explored the prefixes. I just realized I could create a custom which-key entry-point with my favorites in a prefix.

Also just learned about compose key apparently, and I noticed that I can program this split keyboard I'm using to turn that into a chord, anywhere!

Then an LLM told me that I can 3D print my own custom keyboard with 32 programmable layers. Everything is an infinite rabbit hole these days, how wild.

>In emacs, c-x 8 RET prompts you for unicode character names (or hex)[...]

Which is super useful for hard space - non line-breaking space - so that one letter words don't appear at the end of lines.

Huh, I always wondered what that was for...

Macs have a native way to do dashes: option- hyphen for en-dash and option shift hyphen for em-dash. On Windows there are some application-specific ways that make sense, e.g. in Office, but outside that you’re on your own and have to use the “hold alt and type the character codes” method! Or charmap.

> How do you type an em-dash? Is it OS specific?

On Linux X11 at least, you can enable the Compose key and then press `<Compose>---` which results in — and `<Compose>--.` which gives you –

“⎄---”