Looked up the codes here http://unicodelookup.com/#hyphen/1 and I'm told that the unicode character is (in decimal) is 8208. So when I enter ALT+8208 on the numpad in Wordpad, I get this symbol a box with a question mark.
But then when I copy and paste that glyph over to SO here, it pastes as the hyphen. What I really want is the keyboard combo to insert a hyphen wherever I am typing.
Interestingly, if I type ALT+8208 here I get ►. This is extremely frustrating.
Those are probably two completely unrelated issues.
It sounds like the problem in Word is your font. Most (all?) fonts do not support all Unicode characters.
The fact that copying and pasting results in the right character shows that Word "understood" the key combination, but cannot display the character as it should. Try using another font.
The problem in the browser is bad Unicode support.
Try setting the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Input Method\EnableHexNumpad to 1 and using the hexadecimal keyboard combination instead, i.e., Alt + (+, 2, 0, 1, 0). Note that you have to press + on the numpad as well.
In WordPad and in MS Word, you can type U+2010 and then Alt X. This replaces U+2010 by the corresponding Unicode character, HYPHEN. The part U+ can be omitted if the immediately preceding character is not a hexadecimal digit (0–9, A–F) or the letter X.
In other software, it’s more complicated; see the Fileformat.info page How to enter Unicode characters in Microsoft Windows.
Beware that only a limited set of fonts contains HYPHEN, and when a program is forced to change font, HYPHEN from a different font may be unsuitable for use with your basic font. So if you wish to use HYPHEN, select a copy text font that contains it.
The problem is that the font Euphemia does not have this character, hyphen U+2010 (Dec 8208).
On Windows 10 there are more fonts that already include it, e.g. Times New Roman and Sitka.
For the reference, here is a list of popular Windows 7 fonts which do not include it:
The list of some fonts which do include it:
Are you just looking to enter hyphens in word processors? If so, the key next to the 0 is a hyphen. Here's a site I found that would help explain how to insert a hyphen: Hyphens in Win7
