Emdash on Windows

tl;dr—the PowerToys Quick Accent utility lets you quickly and easily insert accented characters (like ö) and special symbols (like —) on Windows.

Switching desktop operating system

After many years of using macOS on my main computer I have switched to using a Windows laptop for my primary computer. This is primarily so that I am using and developing on the dominant operating system in use by the users in my research’s target audience—novice programmers in school during Key Stage 3 (11-16 years old).

Windows is the majority operating system among screen reader users, with 86.1% of respondents to the WebAIM Screen Reader User Survey #10 reporting using their primary desktop/laptop screen reader on Windows. Windows is also the dominant operating system in UK schools. According to the 2022-23 Technology in Schools Survey 98% of secondary schools use some version of Windows as the main operating system for their user / desktop infrastructure.

Initial friction—where’s my emdash?

So far, I don’t hate it. The one thing I quickly missed from macOS is how you can easily insert characters which aren’t on your keyboard. For example: I regularly type my supervisors’ names and one of them includes an o with diaereses (ö), and I am a frequent user of emdashes in my writing (yes, my writing—not LLM generated writing).

Three weeks in to using Windows and I still have no idea how to input these characters on standard Windows 11 without using the character picker.

A solution

Fortunately, I discovered that Windows PowerToys includes a Quick Accent Utility which solves both of these problems. With the utility installed and enabled, you can press a target key on the keyboard (‘o’ for o with diaereses, ‘-‘ for emdash) followed by an activation key (the space bar, by default) to summon an overlay of alternative characters.

It’s not quite as nice as macOS, where ‘option’ + ‘-‘ inserts an emdash, or holding ‘o’ gives a similar overlay with alternative characters to choose from (and supports selection with numerical keys). Apple has decent documentation for this feature: Enter characters with accent marks on Mac