The famous text editor is an indispensable tool for typing structured text. There are many functions here to make the page as readable as possible. The default format is left alignment with automatic word wrap, so the left side of the pages doesn’t look very aesthetically pleasing. If you apply alignment to the full width of the page, then both sides of the sheet will be even, but due to automatic hyphenation, there will be spaces of unequal length between words. Most users are content with the available options, not suspecting that there are additional options for customizing word wrap. You will learn about them today.
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Why is there a word wrap function in MS Word?
Partially the answer to this question has already been given – hyphenation in Word is required to be able to arrange the text on the page so that it is perceived naturally. This is done by placing uniform intervals between words. The second task performed by the function is to save space on the sheet, which is important if the document is multi-page and you plan to print it.
Hyphenation is especially useful if the text is justified to fit the width of the sheet, because in this case the spacing between words becomes disproportionate. The function can be activated in manual or automatic modes, such “tricks” as non-breaking hyphens and soft hyphens also help to improve the perception of the text. The editor has the ability to set the acceptable spacing between words and phrases without using the functions of aligning the right edge by hyphenation.
Setting automatic hyphenation in Word
The standard settings, which take effect after the installation of the office suite, provide for disabling this option. That is, if the last word in a line is out of bounds, it is not broken by a hyphen in accordance with the rules of grammar, but is wrapped to the next line in its entirety. The rest of the text stretches evenly along its entire length if you use Fit to Width formatting.
Let’s consider how to set automatic hyphenation in Word, which will apply to all text or its selected part:
- in versions starting from 2007, you need to start from the “Page Layout” tab located in the main panel, click on the “Hyphenation” button and check the box next to the “Auto” option;
- in Word 2003, the order is somewhat different: select the “Service” tab, in the menu that appears, click on the “Language” option and select the “Hyphenation” sub-item. In a new window, you need to check the box next to the phrase “Automatic hyphenation”.
There will be automatic alignment of the text with word wrapping by means of a hyphen, and the function will also work for newly typed words and sentences.
How to enable manual word wrap
In a popular text editor, the use of manual mode, as opposed to automatic, will allow you to achieve the desired effect only in relation to existing text. Transfer by syllables will be possible by placing the transfer sign manually.
Let’s take a look at how to enable manual hyphenation in Word 2007-2016:
- click on the “Page parameters” tab;
- click on the option “Hyphenation”;
- another window will open, in which we put a tick in front of the word “Manual”;
- it remains to customize the hyphenation character. You will be offered a hyphenation option, if it is satisfactory for you, click “Yes”. Otherwise, the program will offer you another hyphenation option, shifting one syllable forward, and if it was the last – to the next word.
Note that at the time of setup, you will be able to see how it will look on the page.
And now we will describe how to enable / make word wrap in Word 2003.
Click on the “Service” tab, select the “Language” sub-item with a triangle, in the additional menu, click the “Hyphenation” sub-item. We already did this when we turned on the automatic word placement mode. Now we need to click on the “Force” button. The same window with hyphenation settings will open as described above – you need to choose how to separate words by syllable.
Adjusting the transfer parameters, adjusting the width of the zone
When you select the auto-wrap mode, many, if not most, lines will end with a hyphen, that is, with a hyphen. Yes, the text will be right-aligned, but the presence of these drawbacks will not look very aesthetically pleasing. This flaw can be corrected.
Changing the number of consecutive hyphens
This is the first way. To implement it, select the “Page Layout” tab on the main panel, click on the “Hyphenation” sub-item, in which we are interested in the “Hyphenation Parameters” button. In the settings window, in the “Maximum number of consecutive transfers” parameter, instead of the default value (“no”), enter the number that suits you.
Transfer zone width
Another important parameter, the meaning of which is known to very few users of Microsoft’s text editor. You can play with this characteristic to understand how it works. One strategy is to reduce the transfer width. To do this, go to the “Arrangement of hyphenations”, click on the “Parameters” button and in the “Zone width” parameter set a small value, for example, 0.25. After confirming, see what happened – the number of transfers will increase. On the contrary, an increase in the “Zone Width” parameter related to the VC to the right edge of the line will lead to a decrease in the number of hyphenations.
Non-breaking hyphen
This is a very useful feature if you have hyphen-separated words or phrases that are not allowed or desired to be split with a newline. For example, if this is a phone number, which is usually divided into parts by a hyphen. If a part of such a number is on one line, and the remainder is on another, the integrity of perception will be violated.
What needs to be done to make the necessary amendments? Use a non-breaking hyphen instead of a regular hyphen. It is inserted by the Shift + Ctrl + “-” combination. It can be applied to both numbers and letters. By clicking on the “Show all characters” button (located on the “Home” tab), you will see that the short hyphen has been replaced by an em dash. This method is especially good for tables, where, due to the lack of space, specific, incorrect word wrap is very common. You can do the same with spaces by using the above combination with a space instead of a hyphen.
Soft carry sign
Using the mode of aligning a fragment or the entire text to the width of the page is good because the right edge of the sheet turns out to be even, but there are gaps of different widths inside the line, which sometimes become too large. This problem is also fixable; for this, Word provides a so-called soft hyphenation. It is a hyphen character that separates the phrase at the line boundary. But if the word is not on the edge of the line (for example, you made adjustments to the text above), then such a hyphen will automatically disappear.
Inserting a soft transfer is carried out by pressing the combination Ctrl + “-“. You just need to put the cursor in the place of the desired transfer and switch the keyboard to the Latin alphabet with the Shift + Alt combination.
Ways to remove word wrap in Word editor
When typing, you always strive to make it orderly in a consistent style and format. But it often happens that you insert text fragments taken from other sources, and you notice that in these places hyphenations are placed more often than on the rest of the page, or they do not match the page markup.
There are many ways to clean up your document. For example, removing hyphenation. Of course, this can be done manually only if the text is small, consisting of several paragraphs. Otherwise, the process must be automated.
Let’s look at how to turn off word wrap in Word 2007-2016. The undo procedure is different for different types of transfer, so first you need to determine whether we are dealing with automatic transfer or manual transfer. This is done very simply: we try to select a hyphen, which is a hyphen, that is, it separates a word in a line. If the hyphen is highlighted (which will be evidenced by the inversion of colors), then this is a manual transfer, otherwise we are dealing with an automatic placement mode.
Removing automatic transfer is relatively easy. To do this, go to the “Page Layout” tab located in the main menu, click on the “Hyphenation” button and put a tick in front of the word “No”.
You will have to tinker more with manual transfer. The scheme is as follows:
- click on the “Home” tab;
- go to the section “Editing”;
- select the “Replace” submenu item;
- the standard “Find and Replace” panel will open, click on the “Replace” tab;
- to get to the extended selection of parameters, click on the “More” button, and then on “Special”;
- select the “Soft transfer” option in the drop-down menu and see that a special character will appear in the search line;
- the line “Replace with” must be empty, this is important;
- click on the “Replace All” button;
- repeat the procedure, but this time select the “Non-breaking hyphen” item.
Removing text wrapping in Word 2003 is just as easy. We determine the type of transfer using the method described above, it is also valid for the old version of the editor.
If automatic hyphenation is enabled in the text, go to the “Service” tab on the main editor panel, select the “Language” menu item, the “Hyphenation” sub-item, uncheck the box next to the “Automatic hyphenation” phrase, confirm the operation.
You can remove hyphenation in Word 2003, performed in manual mode, according to the following scheme:
- click on the “Edit” tab in the top panel;
- select the “Replace” submenu item;
- the standard “Find and Replace” panel will open, click on the “Replace” tab;
- to get to the extended selection of parameters, click on the “More” button, and then on “Special”;
- select the “Soft transfer” option in the drop-down menu and see that a special character will appear in the search line;
- the line “Replace with” must be empty, this is important;
- click on the “Replace All” button;
- repeat the procedure, but this time select the “Non-breaking hyphen” item.
That is, there is a slightly different way of calling the “Find and Replace” panel, in all other respects the instructions are identical.
So, we looked at the main ways to control word hyphenation in Word, including prohibiting and setting special parameters. We hope that this knowledge will be useful to you in your daily work.