Weird word break problem

[Tjerk OTB]

Hi All,

I have a question about some recent Indesign behavior. I am writing a book in Dutch and currently rechecking grammar. Somehow, a problem arose. I have word breaks on. So at the end of a sentence, when the word does not fit on the line, it breaks the word. Maybe something like this.

I have a pro-

blem with Indesign.

But what happens when I add an extra word is the following.

I have a new

pro-blem with Indesign.

So it does not update correctly, so it seems. I have made a video to help show the problem.

Probleem Woordafbreking Indesign - YouTube

Hope Someone could help me with this problem.

[Barb Binder]

Hi tjerk otb:

Is hyphenation activated for the paragraph style? (bottom row) If you deactivate the hyphenation checkbox, do the hyphens disappear or were they entered manually?

Are you referencing the correct language dictionary? (bottom row)

What are your hyphenation settings? (Control panel menu > Hyphenation)

~Barb

[Tjerk OTB]

Hi Barbbinder,

I did not enter the hyphens manually, that's the thing. I do have to mention that I tried to add page numbers to my book and used the A-Masters to add them. I applied this to all pages, but somehow this didn't work. I did not add any hyphens manually. It seems that the hyphens that were made in the text were made permanent by some action i did. If I write a new word that breaks and try the same I did in the video, it does fix. The hyphenation is on. If I turn it off, all my text goes blank. Any ideas on how these particular breaks got permanent?

[jane-e]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Tjerk+OTB  wrote

I do have to mention that I tried to add page numbers to my book and used the A-Masters to add them. I applied this to all pages, but somehow this didn't work.

If your page numbers are not sorted yet, can you start a new thread for this?

[Tjerk OTB]

Hi Jane,

I choose not to use the page numbering at this time.  I did not use any scripts and i did type everything in Indesign. I think it just happened suddenly. It feels to me that the hyphenation just got permanent somehow, maybe because something i did. I have no idea. If it happens again, i will let you know. Thank you for your help.

[jane-e]

So we can’t blame Word or converting or wayward scripts. Yes, do let us know, and we’ll keep an eye out to see if others report it, in which case it’s a bug.

[Tjerk OTB]

Hi Barbinder,

What i did now is replace every -(space) with nothing. There were 230 instances in which it happened. Now the document seems to act normal. I still don't know what happened, but at least it's fixed.

[jane-e]

Hi Tjerk,

I’m glad you have a fix, but it’s still a mystery since you did the typing and not someone else.

• Was it typed in another application and then placed into InDesign? If so, which application and what did you have in Options?

• If you typed it in another application, do you still have that file? Are the hyphens automatic or typed there?

• Did you run any scripts in InDesign?

If it happens again (I hope it doesn’t), please let us know. It may be a bug that needs to be reported.

~ Jane

[jane-e]

Hi tjerk,

Barb is asking if the hyphens were entered manually. It certainly looks like they are. Missing from your video is the original typing of those two words, so we can’t verify.

When the dash, or hyphen, key is pressed to hyphenate a word, it causes the problem you are seeing. Delete those manual hyphens and enable hyphenation. Adjust the settings in the panel Barb is showing.

~ Jane

[Jongware]

jane-e  wrote

Hi tjerk,

Barb is asking if the hyphens were entered manually. It certainly looks like they are. Missing from your video is the original typing of those two words, so we can’t verify.

Even worse, it looks like there is a manually typed hyphen followed by a space. This has nothing to do with InDesign's hyphenation. Remove all of those manually typed hyphens and just let InDesign do its job.

You are most certainly not fully at the mercy of the automatic hyphenation algorithm. If InDesign adds a hyphen to a word you don't want to break, or it's in an unfavourable place, you can select the entire word and select "No Break" or insert a soft hyphen before its first character (Ctrl+Shift+hyphen) to avoid breaking, or insert a soft hyphen anywhere else at a position of your preference. If you find InDesign has a constant problem with a certain word that does not abide to common hyphenation rules, you can easily add it to the dictionary, with or without any breaking points.

See the Online Help for all of this (and some more) in Dutch: Tekstcompositie uitvoeren en woordafbreking toepassen in Adobe InDesign

[Dennis_Z]

A little late to the party but ended up here while Googling something. I also had this issue with Dutch and eventually found something that worked for me. So if you ever stumble on this again maybe it helps.

Window > Type & Tables > Paragraph

Venster > Teken & Tabellen > Alinea

And then on the dropdown on the top right (menu for more options) > change the composer and see if that works.