strange hyphenation

[RCUSWALK]

I am having a rather strange problem with Word 2007. When the word "Christ"
comes at the end of a line, Word hyphenates it as "Chr-" on one line and
"ist" on the next. This makes no sense since monosyllabic words are never
hyphenated.

I've tried disabling the spelling, etc., that was recommended for others,
but it has no effect. Word does this in every document and with any/every
font. The only thing that works is to disable hyphenation for the entire
document, which is not really an option for me.

I have not found Word to hyphen any other single syllable words in this way.
Being a minister and seminary professor, the name of my Savior comes at the
end of a lot of lines. Does anyone know how to fix this?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

One more argument for not letting Word deal with hyphenation. I prefer to
turn auto hyphenation off and hyphenate words myself manually (by inserting
optional hyphens as required). I don't know what's causing this anomaly, but
I'll bug it.

 

[Aeneas]

It certainly is strange. There may be another solution but try the following
to increase the hyphenation zone to .4":
On the Page Layout tab, in the Page Setup group, click Hyphenation, and then
click Hyphenation Options
In the Hyphenation zone box, type the amount of space you want (in this case
..4")

Hopefully, the increased raggedness at the right margin will be acceptable.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

This is a really long shot, but bear with me. I posted the problem in our
private Word MVP NG to see if anyone could reproduce the error. So far no
one reports being able to, but one MVP suggested it might be an AutoCorrect
issue.

Now, without even trying to imagine how such an AutoCorrect entry might have
been created in your copy of Word, I find that it is possible to create a
formatted AutoCorrect entry to replace "Christ" with "Chr¬ist." So could you
please check and see if by any very remote chance there is such an
AutoCorrect entry? If so, you can delete it, and that would solve the
problem.

If not, we're back to square one.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Okay, I'm back with (mostly) good news. It turns out that the first MVP who
tried this couldn't reproduce it because the error does not occur in English
(UK), only in English (US). I've now had reports from several other MVPs who
*can* reproduce it, and they've come up with some workarounds that may help:

1. The first line of attack is to format "Christ" as "Do not check spelling
or grammar." This will prevent it from being hyphenated.

2. There are several ways to do this. The most direct, of course, is just to
select the word, go to Review | Proofing | Set Language, and check the box
for "Do not check spelling or grammar." Needless to say, this would be
ridiculously cumbersome.

3. One alternative possibility would be to use Find and Replace, upon
completion of a document, to search for "Christ" and apply the "Do not
check..." formatting. Still less than satisfactory.

4. You can define a character style as "Default Paragraph Font + Do not
check spelling or grammar" and apply it to every instance of "Christ." If
you assign a keyboard shortcut to the style, you can apply it fairly
quickly, but this is still less than optimal.

5. Now, however, the pièce de résistance, a way to completely automate the
process:

a. Define the "No Proofing" character style and apply it to "Christ."

b. Select "Christ" and go to Office Button | Word Options | Proofing |
AutoCorrect Options. "Christ" should already be in the "With" box.

c. Select the radio button for "Formatted text."

d. In the replace box, type "christ" (lowercase).

e. Click OK.

Now whenever you type "christ," you'll get "Christ," formatted with the No
Proofing style, and it will not be hyphenated regardless of where it occurs.

 

[Graham Mayor]

Autocorrect would have been my suggestion also, but you don't really need
either a character style (though it is more elegant) or a lower case christ
as the trigger word. If you can normally remember to use the shift key then
use Christ as the trigger word and simply apply the no proofing language
option to the word before selecting it as the formatted autotext
replacement.

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Have you tested this, Graham? I just took Tony Jollans' word for it that
that wouldn't work--that a character style would be required. I did wonder
about the lc, but I guess as long as you're AutoCorrecting, you might as
well save yourself the extra effort of capitalizing as well.

 

[Graham Mayor]

It works inasmuch as the formatted autocorrect will store and apply the no
proofing attribute, but you will need two copies if to want to correct lower
case entry also (four if you want to correct Christ's or christ's).

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The OP didn't say whether the hyphenation error also occurred with
"Christ's." In fact, since the OP has not returned at all, we may all be
talking to ourselves.

 

[Graham Mayor]

That's often the way

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

In case you are still following this, I just received confirmation from a
contact at Microsoft that this has been filed as a bug.