How to turn on automatic hy­phen­ation in Word

The Word hy­phen­ation feature is a practical way to correctly separate words at the end of lines. You can turn it on and off as you please. When de­ac­ti­vat­ed, words are not split in two. Instead, a new line is started for words that are too long to fit on the previous line.

How to turn on automatic hy­phen­ation in Word quick guide

1. Open your Word document and select Layout from the menu at the top of the screen.
2. Click on Hy­phen­ation. A drop-down menu will now appear.
3. Select the desired type of hy­phen­ation (None, Automatic or Manual).

How to turn on and customize automatic hy­phen­ation in Word

If you decide to use the hy­phen­ation feature in a Word document, you have the option of using it for the whole document or for in­di­vid­ual para­graphs. You can even manually define spec­i­fi­ca­tions.

Enabling automatic hy­phen­ation in Word

In Word, hy­phen­ation is disabled in the default settings. You can activate it by doing the following:

1. Click on Layout in the ribbon at the top of the screen.
2. Select the option Hy­phen­ation.
3. Put a checkmark next to Automatic.

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Automatic hy­phen­ation is now enabled for the entire document.

De­ac­ti­vat­ing Word hy­phen­ation for in­di­vid­ual para­graphs

If you don’t want to use the hy­phen­ation feature in certain para­graphs, simply do the following:

1. Select the paragraph(s) where you don’t want hy­phen­ation applied.
2. Click on the right mouse button to open the drop-down menu.
3. Click on the menu item Paragraph….
4. Go to the tab Line and Page Breaks.
5. Put a checkmark in the field Don’t hyphenate and click OK.

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Cus­tomiz­ing Word hy­phen­ation

In addition to this approach, there are other ways to customize hy­phen­ation in Word:

1. Click on the arrow next to Hy­phen­ation in the Layout tab.
2. Select Manual. Here, you can use different types of hy­phen­ation.
3. In the Manual Hy­phen­ation dialog box, you can set in­di­vid­ual break­points and then confirm them when you’re done.

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Inserting protected hyphens using a shortcut

You also have the option to set up protected (non-breaking) hyphens. You can do this by high­light­ing a passage in the text and then pressing the Word key com­bi­na­tion [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [hyphen].

How to enable hy­phen­ation in Word for Mac

With a Mac, you can switch on hy­phen­ation in the same way you would on Windows. Click on Layout at the top and then select Hy­phen­ation. Place a checkmark next to Automatic Hy­phen­ation and click OK.

Turning on and adjusting manual hy­phen­ation in Word for Mac

Hy­phen­ation in Word can also be set up manually on Apple computers. To do this, you can follow the steps listed above for Windows. Al­ter­na­tive­ly, you can click on Hy­phen­ation in the Extras menu and select Manual.

Word will now recognize all the different options for hy­phen­ation. You can select the positions you want for hy­phen­ation in the Suggested hy­phen­ation field.

If you want to manually set up hy­phen­ation for a specific area in the document, simply highlight the section of the text before per­form­ing the steps above.

Cus­tomiz­ing hy­phen­ation in Word for Mac

If you are a Mac user and want to separate text and syllables in a Word document using custom settings, do the following:

1. In the Layout menu, select Hy­phen­ation Options.
2. Check the box next to Au­to­mat­i­cal­ly hyphenate document.
3. In the field labeled Hy­phen­ation zone, you can define the distance you want between the last part of a word and the right-hand margin.
4. With Limit con­sec­u­tive hyphens to, you can specify how many con­sec­u­tive lines can end with hyphens.