Using the En Dash
The en dash is the middle sibling of the dash family: longer than a hyphen, half the width of an em dash, named after the width of a capital N. Its main job is to mean "to" or "through" between two values, and its second job is to link two things that stand on equal footing.
Ranges
Write pages 45–52, 9 a.m.–5 p.m., Monday–Friday and 2019–2026 with an en dash and no spaces. If the range begins with "from" or "between", spell out the connector instead: "from 2019 to 2026", "between 9 and 5", never "from 2019–2026". Scores and votes use the same dash: the match ended 3–1, the motion passed 52–48. A minus sign − is a different character that sits at digit height; do not swap them.
Connections
An en dash also joins two nouns that keep their separate identities: the London–Paris route, the Bohr–Einstein debates, a parent–teacher meeting. A hyphen would imply one combined thing; the dash implies a relationship between two. It is also the polite way to attach a prefix to an open compound, as in post–World War II, where a hyphen would wrongly bind "post" to "World" alone.
The British parenthetical dash
UK publishers, most Australian style guides and many European writers use a spaced en dash – like this – where American style uses the closed em dash. Both are correct; the choice is a house style. What is never correct is a lone hyphen with spaces around it, which is what a keyboard produces by default and what Word's AutoCorrect quietly replaces with an en dash when you type space, hyphen, space.
Typing it
On a Mac, Option + hyphen gives the en dash and Option + Shift + hyphen the em dash. On Windows, Alt + 0150 on the numeric keypad works everywhere, and Word accepts Ctrl + the keypad minus. Phones hide both dashes under a long-press of the hyphen key. LaTeX users type two hyphens.
Where it appears in bios
Year ranges in a profile ("est. 2012–present"), the copyright line of a website footer as on the copyright symbol page, and score-style flexes such as "27–3" in fighter and esports bios all use the en dash. Handles do not accept it, but display names and bios on Instagram, X and Discord do. Because it is part of Windows-1252 and Mac Roman, it renders on every device, and it looks better than a hyphen in a small font or a condensed display face where the hyphen shrinks to a speck.
Quick test
If you can read the dash aloud as "to" or "and", it should be an en dash. If it introduces an interruption, it should be an em dash. If it joins two halves of one word, it is a hyphen.