Good point. Either way, it's kind of peculiar that getting an en dash in this manner demands flanking the hyphen(s) with spaces, and those spaces persist after replacement, when the typical usage of an en dash specifically doesn't demand spaces.
From TFA:
> August 1–August 31
From a top comment:
> Boston–San Francisco flight, 10–20 years
To achieve this using the replacement feature we're talking about would take something like <word><space><hyphenminus><space><word><space><alt+leftarrow><bksp><leftarrow><bksp><alt+rightarrow> which is ridiculous.
In professional typesetting, like a book, I sometimes see spaces flanking an em dash, however.
From TFA:
> August 1–August 31
From a top comment:
> Boston–San Francisco flight, 10–20 years
To achieve this using the replacement feature we're talking about would take something like <word><space><hyphenminus><space><word><space><alt+leftarrow><bksp><leftarrow><bksp><alt+rightarrow> which is ridiculous.
In professional typesetting, like a book, I sometimes see spaces flanking an em dash, however.