About hyphenation

If a word is too long to fit on the end of a line, Microsoft Word moves the word to the beginning of the next line instead of hyphenating it. However, you can use the hyphenation feature to insert hyphens to eliminate gaps in justified text or to maintain even line lengths in narrow columns. You can insert an individual optional hyphen or an individual nonbreaking hyphen, or you can let Word hyphenate all or part of a document for you.

Using automatic hyphenation

When you turn on automatic hyphenation, Word automatically inserts hyphens where they are needed in the document. If you later edit the document and change line breaks, Word rehyphenates the document.

Using manual hyphenation

When you choose manual hyphenation, Word searches for text to hyphenate, asks you to confirm each proposed optional hyphen, and then inserts the optional hyphens. If you later edit the document and change line breaks, Word displays and prints only the optional hyphens that still fall at the ends of lines. Word doesn't rehyphenate the document.

Hyphenating text in another language

To hyphenate text in another language, you need to make sure that the language is enabled for editing, and you need to install the hyphenation tool for that language. Thereafter, Word automatically detects the language in your documents and uses the appropriate hyphenation tool.