In article <> you write:
>Okay, actually, the root of my misunderstanding comes from valid XML--is it
>okay then, within a UTF-8 encoded XML document, to just type the em dash?
Yes. (Though "valid" is a technical term here: you're really asking
about well-formedness.) The same goes for any other encoding that
includes em-dash.
Apart from the syntactically significant characters - angle brackets,
ampersand, quotes - you only *need* character references when the
encoding doesn't support the character. Of course, having a keyboard
that lets you type it and a font that lets you see it is useful too.
-- Richard
