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D
diegocatto
Participant
October 31, 2023
Question

Words are not breaking on text boxes or tables

  • October 31, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 187 views

I've been facing some issues with text boxes and tables recently. Specifically, I've noticed that some of my hyperlinks (and even paragraphs) are not breaking the words as they should, unlike in Word where it works fine. Whether I have hyphenation turned on or off, it doesn't seem to make a difference.

 

For instance, if I place this content inside a table, the only way to break the hyperlink is to manually insert a hard break. Doing this for over 100 hyperlinks is quite impractical. Have you encountered this problem before, and is there any solution to it?

 

I've tried a variety of troubleshooting steps, such as cleaning the text, adjusting the composer, and tinkering with hyphenation settings, but nothing has resolved the issue.

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

TᴀW
TᴀW
Legend
November 1, 2023

For long URLs: (1) Apply "No Language" to them (so that when they do break over the line, no hyphen is added); (2) Insert a discretionary line break (Type > Insert Break Character > Discretionary Line Break) in a sensible place in the middle of the URL.

InDesign will now allow this URL to break over two lines at your discretionary break.

It is tedious to do this manually for dozens or hundreds of URLs! Also, it's not always obvious where the best place to put the discretionary line break is -- you want as many characters as possible to fit on the line, after all, otherwise the spaces on that line will be extra wide, which is ugly. Finally, the Chicago Manual of Style has very specific rules about where, and where not, it is permissible to split long URLs!

(If you'll be doing much of this, therefore, you might want to take a look at my (not-free) script, Hyperlink Pro, which does all the above, plus much more: https://www.id-extras.com/products/hyperlinkpro/)

Ariel

Brad @ Roaring Mouse
Community Expert
Brad @ Roaring MouseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
November 1, 2023

You should be using discretionary hyphens instead of "hard breaks". That being said, since URLS aren't typical wording, the best ID can do is apply a hyphenation algorithm, which may not find an appropriate place to break, or it may break it where you don't want it.

Also, check if your hyperlinks have a Character Style assigned that may be set to No Break. I typically do not want my hyperlinks to break so I tend to set No Break, and manually override it when absolutely necessary.

As for why your other text is behaving badly, I'd have to see a sample file.

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