How to Remove Em Dashes in Word and Google Docs

Whether you’re cleaning up an AI draft or just prefer simpler punctuation, here’s exactly how to remove or replace em dashes in Microsoft Word and Google Docs — and an honest look at the limits of Find & Replace.

Microsoft Word

Method 1: Find & Replace with the special code

1. Press Ctrl + H (Windows) or Control + H (Mac) to open Find and Replace.
2. In Find what, type ^+ — this is Word’s code for an em dash. (For an en dash, use ^=.)
3. In Replace with, type your replacement. For a comma followed by a space, type , . To delete the dash entirely, leave it blank. To turn it into a hyphen, type -.
4. Click Replace All.

Method 2: Paste the character

If the code doesn’t work in your version, copy an em dash (—) from anywhere, paste it into the Find what box, type your replacement, and Replace All.

Turn off auto-creation

Word recreates em dashes as you type. To stop that: File → Options → Proofing → AutoCorrect Options → uncheck “Hyphens (—) with dash”.

Google Docs

1. Open Edit → Find and replace (or Ctrl/Cmd + H).
2. In Find, paste an em dash character (—). Google Docs Find & Replace doesn’t support Word’s ^+ code, so you need the actual character.
3. Enter your replacement in Replace with (for example , for a comma and space, or leave blank to delete).
4. Click Replace all.

To stop Docs from auto-converting -- into an em dash: Tools → Preferences → uncheck “Automatic substitution”.

The problem with Find & Replace

Both methods share the same flaw: they do a blind, identical replacement. Every em dash becomes the same thing — usually a comma. But an em dash does different jobs in different sentences:

• “The plan was simple — we would win.” → replacing with a comma gives “The plan was simple, we would win,” which is a comma splice (two complete sentences joined by a comma). It should be a semicolon or a period.
• “My sister — a doctor — arrived.” → here commas are correct, and you need both dashes replaced as a pair.
• “We met in May—September.” → this is really a date range that should be an en dash, not a comma at all.

A single Replace All can’t tell these apart, so it quietly introduces grammar errors. If you’re cleaning a long document, you’ll create dozens of them without noticing.

The faster, correct way

Instead of replacing every dash identically, paste your text into our grammar-aware em dash remover. It reads the words on both sides of each dash and chooses the right fix:

• two independent clauses → semicolon or period (no comma splice),
• a parenthetical aside → a matched pair of commas or parentheses,
• an explanation → a colon,
• a date or number range → an en dash,
• everything else → a clean comma.

Then you copy the result back into Word or Google Docs. You can even use Diff view to see precisely what changed before you trust it. It’s faster than running multiple Find & Replace passes, and it doesn’t leave your document full of splices.

Quick comparison

Find & Replace is fine for a quick, one-off swap. For cleaning AI text or a whole manuscript, let a tool handle the grammar so you don’t have to re-read every sentence.