I suspect conventions might be strongly regionally dependent.
> - Em-dashes are represented by two hyphens with no space > either side--visually easy to understand. > > - En-dashes are represented by a single hyphen > surrounded by spaces (e.g. 2 - 3 minutes). I believe this should be reversed -- 2 hyphens with spaces for an em-dash, and 2 hyphens without spaces for an en-dash (e.g., 2--3 minutes). This not only follows typeset conventions more closely, but it also indicates the intent to the typesetter much better. In addition, it corresponds to European practice, where it is customary to use an en-dash surrounded by spaces instead of the em-dash without spaces used in the US. TeX's convention is also good and unambiguous, and I've seen that being used in documentation as well: * one hyphen for hyphen or minus (depending on context) * two hyphens for an en-dash * three hyphens for an em-dash > - All enumerators for lists (other than letters or digits) are > represented by a single hyphen followed by a space Anything nicely symmetric works well, and allows visually distinguishing between different list levels in addition to list indentation. (In earlier times when documents such as manual pages were often printed on lineprinters capable of overstriking, I've seen o-plus used.)
