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N
Niet beschikbaar
Known Participant
July 9, 2020
Answered

InDesign hyphenation not working. UNACCEPTABLE!

  • July 9, 2020
  • 6 replies
  • 7753 views

I have been working on a major book project for more than a year, hundreds of hours of work are involved. Upon opening my document recently I have discovered my text will no longer correctly hyphenate, regardless of whether hyphenation is correctly applied. No hyphenation happening whatsoever. On or off.

A possible solution has been suggested in threads by people having the same issues: copying the text to another frame, applying the [Basic paragraph] style, copying back the text, then reapplying the correct styles. This means manually reworking projects to get hyphenation working again. 

Hyphenation is a basic function of InDesign. Stable typographic behaviour is a core function of this application. It should be rock solid. IT IS NOT.

Professionals are depending on the stability of this software for their livelyhoods, and paying for it. It would be so nice if ADOBE WOULD GET THEIR ACT TOGETHER. This sloppy performance is utterly unacceptable for professional software.

This is not the first time damage has been caused by bugs and instability, these issues are becoming more and more frequent. I DO NOT WANT WORKAROUNDS. I WANT SOFTWARE I CAN DEPEND ON FOR MY WORK.

    Correct answer rob day

    Have you tried saving the problem document as an IDML and reopening, and if that doesn’t work trashing your preferences and caches?

    Can you share an example file via Dropbox or your CC account?

    6 replies

    Marie Agger
    Marie Agger
    Participant
    January 13, 2023

    I experienced exactly the same thing just before the deadline on a major project six months ago and am now experiencing the same problem again. It's driving me crazy! I'm an experienced user of InDesign and working with typography and I have tried EVERYTHING suggested in the thread here. Nothing works. Luckily I found a way - I tried moving all the pages from the document over into a new blank document - that solved the problem for me this time.

      H
      HHSDebbie
      Inspiring
      January 23, 2023

      ...

      EEM.Scott
      EEM.Scott
      Participant
      June 20, 2024

      In the contents folder the info.plist needs to be reset. We have to do this every once in a while when all hyphenation ceases. This happens on the Mac, primarily after we add and use hyphenation languages not supported out of the box by Indesign. The experts at Indesign worked with me for months to figure this out, but I do not believe they have solved the problem yet. Resources:Dictionaries:Lilo:Linguistics:Providers:Plugins2:AdobeHUNspellPlugin.bundle:Contents:info.plist

       

        G
        greiss
        Known Participant
        November 16, 2021

        Just make sure that your Language option in the Character panel is as your text.

          H
          HHSDebbie
          Inspiring
          January 23, 2023

          ...

          rob day
          Community Expert
          rob dayCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
          Community Expert
          July 9, 2020

          Have you tried saving the problem document as an IDML and reopening, and if that doesn’t work trashing your preferences and caches?

          Can you share an example file via Dropbox or your CC account?

            Barb Binder
            Community Expert
            Barb BinderCommunity Expert
            Community Expert
            July 9, 2020

            Yes, correct hyphenation is a requirement, not an option. What hyphenation dictionary are you using? (Prefs > Dictionary)

             

            ~Barb

            ~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training
              Jongware
              Community Expert
              JongwareCommunity Expert
              Community Expert
              July 9, 2020

              Can you provide some more detail? (Possibly relevant, possibly not.)

               

              What version are you opening your files with? Were the files created in an earlier version? Check the Document History if you are not sure. Your InDesign may have been automatically updated (several times, actually, over the course of a year).

               

              Does hyphenation work (correct or otherwise 😛 ) in a brand new document?

               

              Does changing the applied language of the text to any other language change the current hyphenation points? (It should, even if it's the "wrong" hyphenation. Changing the language back again should re-hyphenate the text.)

                Derek Cross
                Community Expert
                Derek CrossCommunity Expert
                Community Expert
                July 9, 2020

                Presumably you have backup copies of your book file.

                 

                You should regularly apply a Safe As to your InDesign document and incrementally rename the file (filename1a.indd, filename1b.indd and so on), this will clean up the crud that can build up and cause corruption.

                 

                By the way, this is a user-to-user support forum, you are not addressing Adobe on here.

                 

                  N
                  Niet beschikbaarAuthor
                  Known Participant
                  July 9, 2020

                  Hello Derek, I know, I know you‘re right. Adobe is not reading these. I just had to vent. And your tips are good. I already do  that, the versions. Have done for years, My projects have many tens of versions, down to the X.XX, for a myriad of reasons, the least of which is fundamental instability of core instability of documents. 
                  Ik will go back to a version that stull has hyphenation, and then try to rework the changes. But still, this is an unacceptable level of instability in critical document integrity. 

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