On Linux I just type (in sequence):

compose - -

and it makes an em dash, it takes a quarter of a second longer to produce this.

I don't know why the compose key isn't used more often.

The compose key feels mandatory for anyone who wants to type their native langauge on an US-english layout. The combination[0] is "Compose--." though: –

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key#Common_compose_com...

“Compose--.” produces an en dash, not an em dash. An em dash is produced by “Compose---”.

Source:

  grep -e DASH /usr/share/X11/locale/*/Compose

As it should be. I wish this convention were present across more software, “-“ “- -“ and “- - -“ should be the UI norm for entering proper dashes in text input controls.

Most software handles this fine if you configure your compositor to use a compose key.

Whoops, yep that's the one

[As an English typer] Where is this compose key on my keyboard?

(This is a vaguely Socratic answer to the question of why the compose key is not more often used.)

It’s not mapped to any key by default. A common choice is the right alt key.

I wrote a short guide about it last year: https://whynothugo.nl/journal/2024/07/12/typing-non-english-...

My personal preference is the capslock key. I'm not using it for anything anyway

In Vim it's Ctrl+K. ;)

As per the wiki article someone else listed — the compose key was available on keyboards back in the 1980s (notably it was invented only 5 years after the Space Cadet keyboard was invented!).

Some DOS applications did have support for it. The reason it wasn't included is baffling, and it's especially baffling to me that other operating systems never adopted it, simply because

    compose a '

is VASTLY more user friendly to type than:

    alt-+
    1F600

which I have met some windows users who memorize that combo for things like the copyright symbol (which is simply:)

    compose o c

This is a misconception which keeps getting repeated. It's easy to use an em-dash on any modern Linux desktop as well (and in a lot of other places).

Though it does still require nominating a key to map to Compose. And is not generally meaningfully documented. So I’d only call it easy for the sorts of people that care enough to find it.

But then, long before I had a Compose key, in my benighted days of using Windows, I figured out such codes as Alt+0151. 0150, 0151, 0153, 0169, 0176… a surprising number of them I still remember after not having typed them in a dozen years.

I miss the numeric keypad (gone on laptops) to be able to properly type my last name with its accentuated letter.

In electrical engineering I'm still using a few alt codes daily, like 248 (degree sign), 234 (Omega), 230 (mu), and 241 (plus or minus). I'd love to add 0151 to the repertoire, but I don't want people to think I used AI to write stuff....

I've never bothered to read about the compose key, but en/em-dash is accessible (in Debian) with AltGr-(Shift)-Hyphen/Minus too. Copyright (©) is AltGr-Shift-C.

Android — keyboard – good for endash to !

My favourite android keyboard has a compose key and also a lot of good defaults in long touch on keys (including en and em under dash). Only downside is last android update causes the keyboard to be overlapped in landscape mode. A problem with a number of alternative keyboards out there. https://github.com/klausw/hackerskeyboard/issues/957

Or, you know — iOS. That’s huge marketshare for a keyboard that automatically converts -- to —

That probably explains everything from a statistical perspective about this em dash topic. I didn’t know that — Thanks.

Or Microsoft word. Many common tools in different contexts make it easy to do.

As it turns out, the differentiator is the level of literacy.

And whether the user cares to ‘write properly’ to boot. I love using dashes to break up sentences - but I rarely take the time to use the proper dashes, unless I’m writing professionally. I treat capitalization the same way - I rarely capitalize the first letter of a paragraph. I treat ‘rules’ like that as typographic aesthetic design conventions - optional depending on context.

You can also hold down the hyphen key and select it from the popup menu. En dash lives there, too.

In emacs, Ctr-x 8 <return> is how i type it. Pretty easy.

It's just em dash is the correct symbol, and typing it on Mac is simple: `cmd + -`

You can tell if I'm using mac or not for specific comment by the presence of em dash.