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	<title>Hyphenation</title>
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<h2>Hyphenation</h2>
<h3>Introduction</h3>
<p>One of the reasons for ugly text layout is &ldquo;white holes&rdquo; between words, which in turn are the result of unhyphenated text. A general rule is that the shorter the a line of text, the more likely those gaps are. Hence the strong recommendation to use the hyphenator for continuous text.</p>

<h3>Configuration</h3>
<p>To get the best hyphenation results, you are advised to configure the hyphenator properly. This can be done via <i>File > Document Setup > Hyphenator</i> for the current document and <i>File > Preferences > Hyphenator</i> for new documents.</p><br>

<table width="100%"><tr><td align="center"><img src="images/hyphen1.png" align="center" alt="Hyphenator Settings Dialog" /></td></tr></table>
<p>The dialog consists of four parts. In the upper left section (<i>General Options</i>) you can determine the general behavior of the hyphenator:</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Hyphenation Suggestions:</b> If you check this option, Scribus will suggest the hyphenation for <i>every word</i> in a text frame. If applied to a long text, this can be time-consuming, and you may want to correct hyphenations on a case-by-case instead.</li>
<li><b>Hyphenate Text Automatically During Typing:</b> If checked, Scribus will automatically hyphenate text in every text frame that&rsquo;s being added to your document. This includes imported text.</li>
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<p>In the upper right corner you can see the most important typographical options, namely:</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Language:</b> There are huge differences between the hyphenation rules in different languages, so you have to make sure to select the correct one. If you use more than one language in a document, you can set up separate <a href="WwStyles.html">character styles</a> for every language.</li>
<li><b>Smallest Word</b> determines the length required to trigger a hyphen. The default is 3, which means that a word needs to consist at least of four characters to be hyphenated.</li>
<li><b>Consecutive Hyphenations Allowed</b> determines in how many consecutive lines hyphenation is permitted. It is recommended to limit the number of lines, because otherwise the right border of a text looks like a &ldquo;ladder&rdquo;. The default is 2, which is common in typography.</li>
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<p>In the lower part of the dialog there are two fields that allow you to specify words that you want to be treated differently. The left field is called <i>Exceptions</i>. Here you can add words that aren&rsquo;t hyphenated correctly by the hyphenator. In the example above, the word &ldquo;manuscript&rdquo; has been inserted, including the desired positions for line breaks, which are specified by inserting &ldquo;-&rdquo; via the keyboard.</p>
<p>To the right there is a second field called <i>Ignore List</i>. Any word that has been added to this list won&rsquo;t be hyphenated.</p>
<h3>Usage</h3>
<p>Select a text frame, adjust the text alignment to your liking and then select <i>Extras > Hyphenate Text</i> from the menu. Note that this will only hyphenate text in a selected frame.</p>
<p>In the <i>Extras</i> menu there is also the opposite feature, called <i>Dehyphenate Text</i>. It is used to dehyphenate text in a selected frame, but it can also be used to dehyphenate a single word. To do the latter, you have to select a hyphenated word in a text frame and then use the menu command.</p>
<p>Not every possible or reasonable hyphenation can be detected by the hyphenation algorithm. In such a case you can insert a so-called &ldquo;soft hyphen&rdquo; into a word. &ldquo;Soft hyphen&rdquo; essentially tells the hyphenator: &ldquo;Hyphenate here, if possible,&rdquo; where &ldquo;possible&rdquo; means that hyphenation is not prevented by other settings, like <i>Consecutive Hyphenations Allowed</i>. To insert a soft hyphen, you need to place the cursor in a word at the desired break position and then use <i>Insert > Character > Soft Hyphen</i>.</p>
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