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Are you up to date with hyphenation?

It is not a hyphen or underscore (_), the hyphen (-) is a punctuation mark most commonly used to join two words to form one, and for such a small character, it has an important role in any document. text. In fact, the hyphen has an entire function dedicated to its use in Word 2007.

Hyphenation deals with the role of the hyphen when it is used to separate words at the end of a line. A word that appears at the end of a line, but is too long to fit completely on that line, can be hyphenated. This is especially useful if moving the word to the next line avoids nasty spaces in the text on the previous line.

Obviously, the difficulty is that by inserting a hyphen into a word at the end of a line, it does not become a permanent part of the spelling of the word. The rules for deciding where to insert a hyphen can therefore sometimes cause confusion. Some prefer to split words between consonants, eg ‘splen-dour’; and some between vowels – ‘appreciate’. Words of one syllable should never be split, eg ‘rhythm’. As a general guide, the hyphen should be placed on the word in a place that makes the text easy to read.

Word 2007 has a sophisticated hyphenation feature, which does most of the decision making for you. The hyphenation feature can be used to avoid spaces on lines when text is justified, or to make text more even on lines when using “ragged” copy. Hyphenation also promotes better understanding and awareness of the shape of words on a line and allows the author to create a more professional and refined looking document.

The hyphenation feature can be configured to automatically or manually split text, insert non-breaking or optional hyphens, and set the maximum amount of space allowed between a word and the right margin without breaking the word.

When you select Automatic hyphenation, when a word is too long to fit at the end of a line, Word 2007 automatically breaks the word across two lines. Automatic hyphenation is a great feature if you are sure where a hyphen will be inserted. If the text is edited, Word automatically re-splits the modified text as needed.

Manual hyphenation gives the author more control in selecting where a hyphen should or should not appear. Again, if you edit the text, Word will offer alternatives to the new line breaks and will not automatically break words. This is particularly useful when using compound nouns and verbs such as ‘in-house’ or ‘e-mail’ and where the style of the house dictates the spelling.

An optional hyphen can be used when you want to ensure that a word will only be hyphenated at the end of a line in a certain place. For example, to make sure that the word without hyphens is never broken as ‘without hyphens’. An optional hyphen may be inserted after ‘not’ and before ‘hyphen’. To insert an optional hyphen, use the ‘CTRL+HYPHEN’ keys. To view optional indents, select the Show and Hide feature in the Paragraph group on the Home tab.

A non-breaking hyphen can also be inserted into words or phrases that you do not want to break at the end of a line. For example, in the number sequence, ‘Phone: 555-5555’, the phone number should not be split on a line.

A non-breaking hyphen can be written to ensure that the number is not split across two lines. To insert a running hyphen, click where the hyphen appears and press ‘CTRL+SHIFT+HYPHEN’. Now the entire number will be passed to the next line and will not be split at the hyphen point.