Punctuation Guide

This page is dedicated to being a brief explanation of ASCII vs Unicode punctuation and even how to type them.

Hyphens and Dashes

Hyphen (-)

• The standard ASCII hyphen. Safe for all Conservapedia pages and required for Conservapedia's Original Source Project.

En-dash (–)

• Important: A user cannot type an en-dash directly on a US keyboard. It only appears through special key combinations or automatic substitution by software.
• Windows: Hold ALT + 0150, or use the Character Map.
• Mac: Hold Option + Hyphen
• Linux: Press Compose key then - then -
• HTML/MediaWiki: Type –
• The en-dash is a Unicode character used for ranges (e.g., 1914–1918). It must not be used in Conservapedia's Original Source Project pages.

Em-dash (—)

• Important: A user cannot type an em-dash directly on a US keyboard. It only appears through special key combinations or automatic substitution by software.
• Windows: Hold ALT + 0151, or use the Character Map.
• Mac: Hold Option + Shift + Hyphen
• Linux: Press Compose key then - then - then -
• HTML/MediaWiki: Type —
• The em-dash is a long Unicode character used for strong breaks in thought. It must **not** be used in Original Source Project pages. Use the ASCII hyphen (-) instead.

Minus sign (−)

• A mathematical Unicode minus symbol. To the eye the minus sign is visually similar to a hyphen but is distinctly different. Must not be used in Conservapedia's Original Source Project pages as it will create a different system in the page name convensions.

Quotation Marks

• Straight quotes (" ")
• Smart quotes (“ ”)

Apostrophes

• Straight apostrophe (')
• Typographic apostrophe (’)

Ellipsis

• Three periods (...)
• Unicode ellipsis (…)

Other Unicode Pitfalls

• Non‑breaking space
• Curly brackets
• Long arrows
• Mathematical symbols

ASCII‑Only Requirement

Explanation of why OS Project pages must use ASCII.

How to Check for Unicode

Tips for editors.

See Also

Links to OS Project Style Guide, Internal Links, etc.