em dash character

There are a few different ways to create horizontal divider lines in Word 2007 and Word 2010. The most commonly used one is done by typing three hyphens (—) and then pressing Enter:

If you want a dotted line, use three asterisks (***):

Three equal signs (===) gives you a double line:

Three underscores (___) makes a divider of medium thickness:

Three number signs (###) generates a thicker line with borders:

And three tildes (~~~) creates a wavy line:

If you ever want to delete one of these lines, you may find it tricky to remove. That’s because they’re not actually lines, they are borders. To remove one, select the line and the paragraph that precedes it, click on the Border button on theHome tab in the Paragraph group and select No Border.

The easiest way to enter an em dash ( — ) is to let Word do it. Simply enter two hyphen characters between the two words you want to connect, and Word will turn the hyphens into an em dash. If this doesn’t work for you, one of two possibilities exist:

You’ve inserted space characters between the words and the hyphen characters. When you enter spaces between the hyphens, Word formats the hyphens as an en dash ( – ), which is shorter than an em dash.
Someone has disabled the AutoCorrect option that formats hyphens as an em dash.

Now, this default won’t work for everyone every single time. If you occasionally need two hyphens instead of an em dash, you can press [Ctrl]+Z and Word will undo the em dash character and restore the hyphens. If you find yourself doing this a lot, it might be more efficient to disable the AutoCorrect option and enter an em dash, when you require it, manually. You can disable this option as follows:

From the Tools menu, choose AutoCorrect Options.
Click the AutoFormat As You Type tab.
Uncheck the Hyphens ( — ) With ( — ) option.

After disabling the AutoCorrect option, you’ll have to enter an em dash manually. Fortunately, there are three easy methods:

Press [Ctrl]+[Alt]+-. You must use the minus sign (-) on the numeric keypad; if you use the hyphen character on the alphanumeric keypad, Word will change the cursor.
Hold down the [Alt] key and type 0151 on the numeric keypad.
Choose Symbol from the Insert menu, click the Special Characters tab, highlight the em dash, and click Insert.

Entering an em dash character is easy, whether you let Word do it or you choose to enter the character yourself.

microsoft word automatically creates it when you type in two dashes — followed by a space.

alternatively, you can hold down the ALT key, and then type in 0151 on the numeric keypad to create it.

make sure to type in all four digits, not 151, but 0151.

if you want more special characters. go to windows start, click on programs, then click on accessories, and select the character map.