Hyphenating a Document

Hyphenation is the process of adding hyphens to words at the beginning of lines so the hyphenated part will fit at the end of the previous line. The hyphens are inserted between syllables in a word. Word can automatically hyphenate your document for you, or you can use the hyphenation tool to manually hyphenate your document. To use the hyphenation tool, follow these steps:

1. Go to the beginning of your document (this is not necessary, but saves time when hyphenating).
2. Make sure the Page Layout tab is displayed on the ribbon.
3. In the Page Setup group click the Hyphenation tool. Word displays a set of hyphenation choices.
4. Choose Hyphenation Options. Word displays the Hyphenation dialog box. (Click here to see a related figure.)
5. Use the controls in the dialog box to specify parameters of how the hyphenation is done.
6. Select the Automatically Hyphenate Document check box if you want Word to make all the hyphenation decisions for you. When you subsequently click OK, you can skip the rest of the steps.
7. Click the Manual button.
8. You are shown the first possible hyphenation. (Click here to see a related figure.)
9. If the word being proposed for hyphenation is long enough, you may be able to specify a different place for it to be hyphenated. Simply click on one of the proposed hyphenation points.
10. Click on Yes to hyphenate the word at the noted point, or click on No to skip hyphenating the word. You are then shown the next possible hyphenation.
11. Repeat steps 9 and 10 for the remainder of the document.