Inspiring

Question

Canadian English setting creates incorrect hyphenation

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
March 28, 2023
10 replies
732 views

When I set a the language for my body text to Canadian English, I often end up with incorrect hyphenation. In the most recent example, "knickknacks" was hyphenated as "knickk-nacks". There have been other such instances, too. Why is this, and can it be corrected? When I switch to USA English, the hyphen is correct, but then of course the spell check will use the US dictionary.

This topic has been closed for replies.

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

Someone ought to *edit* the built-in Canadian English spell-check language file and make it function better.

Of course, also default your spell checker dictionary to Hunspell; not Proximity (something you will see in aged files).

Mike Witherell

Brad @ Roaring Mouse

Community Expert

The issue is not with InDesign itself but with the Hunspell spelling dictionaries which are used by InDesign (and many other programs). Unlike the US and UK dictionaries, the Canadian English dictionary does not have a dedicated hyphenation exception dictionary (Hunspell has yet to create one) so hyphenation is left to an algorithm.

Your only recourse is to add a new hyphenation exception of your own to handle it going forward.

Go to Edit > Spelling > User Dictionary, and select the Canadian dictionary, Type Word "knickknack" and click Hyphenate. You will see that it places hyphenation points with priority given to the one with two "~~". Edit it so that there are only the two "~~" where you want it, then Click Add.

D

dwe16Author

Inspiring

Thanks for this explanation. My Hyphenation Dictionary (in Preferences) was actually set to Proximity, but changing it to Hunspell didn't seem to make any difference. Using Canadian English for the language changes the hyphenation considerably, and I can't change my hyphenation preferences for every single word, so I guess I will just use the US English Dictionary instead.

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

Just to be clear, you are setting the dictionary language in the Paragraph Style, right?

And in Preferences, are you using the Hunspell; not the Proximity?

Mike Witherell

Harshika Verma

Community Manager

Hi @dwe16,

Thank you for reaching out, and sorry for the trouble. A few more details would be super helpful for further investigation.

Would you mind telling us the version of InDesign and the details of your operating system?
Please share a screenshot of the issue and also which keyboard you are using, is it ENG or another language?
Is it happening on any other Adobe apps or any Non-Adobe apps?

We will try our best to investigate.

Thanks,

Harshika

D

dwe16Author

Inspiring

Thanks Harshika for your reply.

I am using InDesign 2022 (version 17.4.1) on macOS 12.6.3, with an English keyboard. I have not noticed this issue happening on any other apps -- I don't see why it would, since InDesign uses its own dictionaries, right?

The attached screenshot shows Candian vs. US English for two different spots in a book I am working on. With the setting on Canadian English, I get "knickk-nacks" and "Chronologic-ally" (both incorrect), whereas with the US English setting, the hyphenation is correct. All other style settings are the same -- only the language was changed.

I hope this is helpful. Thanks again for looking into it.

Canadian_vs_US_English.pdf

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