Issue with Hyphenation in Italian

[Inélsòre]

Dear all,

I have just activated hyphenation for a paragraph style but I have seen that InDesign has a somewhat curious way of hyphenating Italian words.

For example: "semiminima" (quarter note in Italian) should have the following syllabication: se-mi-mi-ni-ma. InDesign things it should be se-mi-min-ima. 

Is there something I as a user can do for this issue? Like manually forcing syllable division? 

If not, then please update the language engine of the software so that it better supports non-English languages.

Thanks

[jane-e]

Hi

Set the text to Italian for proper hyphenation. This is a Character level setting.

~ Jane

[Inélsòre]

Thank you.

How do I do that?

In the same text frame (which spans multiple pages) there is both Italian and English.

How can I set the language of a selection?

[jane-e · Accepted solution]

Hi

Select the text that is in Italian. You can set the language in the Character panel or the Control panel (set to Character). It most likely says "English" by default.

If the entire paragraph is in Italian, create a Paragraph style. If some words are in Italian, create a Character style and apply it to those words.

I don't know your level of expertise, so please post back if you still have questions.

~ Jane

[Inélsòre]

Thank you Jane, very kind of you!

It was just under my eyes!

I'm a pretty new user (1 month?) so the most troubles are arising from trying to find things in the interface.

Control paner, Character panel ... it all confuses me. 

I had the character style window open and I could not find a way to change the language. Also I wonder if I could apply more than one style to a selection. 

In the end I found it in the top row of buttons and icons of the screen! That should be the Control Panel, right? 

[jane-e]

You're welcome, Inélsòre! Yes, that's the Control panel. There are two buttons on the left — the "A" is for character formatting and the pilcrow is for Paragraph formatting. All panels can be found in the Window menu and can be turned on and off from there.

Paragraph styles are used for the entire paragraph and include character and paragraph level formatting.

If some words in the paragraph need to be formatted differently, you can create a Character style that has only that new information, in your case "Italian". So the Italian Character style can be applied wherever necessary.

That's very brief since you are a beginner, but I have to add that InDesign has features to allow for more complex approaches, so ask again when you need to.

~ Jane

[Inélsòre]

Thank you so much once more!

I'm sure InDesign can handle much more than this, and I can't wait to learn more! 

I've desired such a tool for years! 

All the best,

~ I.