How do I use Unicode in AutoHotKey?

Question

I am trying to make two hyphens trigger a short dash, and three hyphens trigger a long dash; like

:*?:---=::—
:*?:--=::–

except working. Here i

Answer 1

The .ahk text file needed to be saved with UTF8-BOM encoding rather than UTF8

As pointed out in this comment, posting as an answer for more visibility.