| Character | - |
| Name | Hyphen-Minus |
| Unicode Code Point | U+002D |
| Decimal Value | 45 |
| Hex Value | 0x002D |
| Category | Basic Latin |
| Windows Alt Code | Not available — use copy/paste |
| Word Alt+X Code | 002D + Alt+X |
| Mac Shortcut | Not available — use copy/paste |
| HTML Entity | - |
| HTML Code (Dec / Hex) | - / - |
| CSS Content Code | content: "\002D"; |
| JavaScript Unicode Escape | "\u{002D}" |
The hyphen-minus is one of the original ASCII characters, meaning it has been part of computer text since the earliest teleprinters and terminals. Because it sits in the first 128 Unicode code points, it is guaranteed to render identically on virtually every device, operating system, font, and programming language ever built.
Unicode block: Basic Latin (U+0000–U+007F). The Basic Latin block is identical to 7-bit ASCII, the character-encoding standard published in 1963 and still the foundation every modern text encoding (including UTF-8) builds on.
At Unicode code point U+002D (decimal 45), Hyphen-Minus is the 13th of 84 characters cataloged in this category on How To Type Any Symbol. In terms of typing methods, like most characters outside the 0–255 legacy codepage range, it has no dedicated Alt-code or single-key shortcut on Windows or Mac, so copy-paste is the standard, universal method for typing it. Regardless of platform, clicking the copy button above places the exact character on your clipboard, ready to paste into any application that accepts Unicode text.
💡 Good to know: This character is safe to use in URLs, filenames, and plain-text emails without any escaping in most contexts, unlike many symbols from later Unicode blocks.
No alt code available — click the copy button above and paste with Ctrl+V.
No dedicated shortcut — click the copy button above and paste with Cmd+V.
Click the symbol above to copy it, then paste anywhere — works on every device and OS.
Use the entity - in your HTML.
Windows does not have an Alt code for Hyphen-Minus. Copy - from this page and paste it with Ctrl+V.
There is no dedicated Mac shortcut for Hyphen-Minus. Copy - from this page and paste it with Command+V.
Hyphen-Minus (-) is Unicode U+002D, decimal 45.
Use the HTML entity -, or the numeric code - (hex -).