En (typography)

An en is a typographic unit, half of the width of an em. By definition, it is equivalent to half of the height of the font (e.g. in 16 point type it is 8 points). As its name suggests, it is also traditionally the width of an uppercase letter "N".

The en dash (–) and en space ( ) are each one en wide. In English, the en dash is commonly used for inclusive ranges (e.g., "pages 12–17" or "August 7, 1988 – November 26, 2005"), and increasingly to replace the long dash ("—", also called an em dash). (When using it to replace a long dash, spaces are needed either side of it – like so.)

Associated symbols

See standard typographic symbols (ndash, ensp):

• n-width Non-breaking space symbol: UTF8 U+2002 (8194) and HTML  . Example: " "
• en dash: UTF8 U+2013 (8211) and HTML –. Example: "–"

See also

• Dash
• Em (typography)
• x-height
• Non-breaking space width variations