Learn how you can insert an em dash in PowerPoint for Mac. Find easier ways to add the em dash, and make your content better.
Author: Geetesh Bajaj
Product/Version: PowerPoint for Mac
OS: Mac OS X
You may want to quickly add an em dash within your text container—be it a placeholder, text box, shape, or even a table. It's very easy to add an em dash, and there is more than one way to achieve this task, although there may be some differences, and all ways may not work in the version of PowerPoint you are using. But certainly, using one of these options, you will be able to add an em dash in PowerPoint for Mac.
An Em Dash is a dash that's roughly as wide as the capital letter M. Characters can be wider or less wide, depending on the font used. The M in Arial is wider than the M in Calibri, as you can see in Figure 1, below. Depending upon the font used, the width of your em dash can differ.
Figure 1: Width of the em dash depends upon the font used
One aspect though will always be constant—the em dash will be longer than the en dash, which is similarly roughly based on the width of the capital letter N, as can be seen in Figure 1, above. Also, the en dash is wider than the figure dash, the hyphen, and the minus sign.
We will look at three ways to add an em dash in PowerPoint for Mac. We have a separate tutorial on how to add an em dash in PowerPoint versions on Windows.
To add an em dash using a keyboard shortcut, follow these steps:
To access the em dash character from the Symbol dialog box, follow these steps:
Finally, you can create an AutoCorrect entry that lets you add an em dash quickly, with a shortcut. To do so, follow these steps:
Now, whenever you type ---, PowerPoint will replace the three dashes with an em dash. In case you don't want three dashes to be replaced with an em dash, press Cmd + Z to undo. Also, do note that any AutoCorrect entry you create will work in all Microsoft applications, such as Word, Excel, Outlook, etc.
See Also:
Symbols: Add an Em Dash (Glossary Page)
Add an Em Dash in PowerPoint for the Web
Add an Em Dash in PowerPoint for Windows
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