When you’re writing a report or an email you probably use a hyphen (the key to the right of the zero) when you want a minus sign. It’s OK, but a hyphen is too short because it’s intended to be a connector in words like co-ordination.
A minus sign looks better if you use an en-dash (–), which is a dash that is the same width as an “n”. See for yourself:
–431 looks better than -431 (especially in tables)
To get an en-dash in Windows you can type " - " (a hyphen with spaces either side is autocorrected to an en-dash) and then delete the spaces or, if you have a number keypad, it’s Ctrl+{minus sign}. If you’re on a Mac, type Opt+{hyphen}.
𝗕𝗼𝗻𝘂𝘀 𝘁𝗶𝗽: As well as being used for the minus sign, an en dash is also the punctuation mark for separating number ranges such as pages 67–73, and separating the years in a date range, such as in 2024–25.
And contact me if you want to know how to type a proper multiplication sign (×) instead of using an x. 😀
