Hyphenation does not work on all documents

Question

Hello folks!

In certain of my documents hyphenation works in about 80% of the cases but it doesn't at all in other documents. Yet these are clones of the formers. In the Hyphenation dialog box all the boxes are checked and the "Limit consecutive hyphens to" is set to "No limit". Even when I click on the Manual button nothing happens.

BTW, I couldn't find a user manual for Word.

Any clue folks?

TIA

Nick

Answer 1

Problem solved!

It occurred to me that the issue could be related to the style I use. So I opened the Modify Style dialog box and in the Format local menu I went to Paragraph and I found that for some reason the Don't hyphenate option was checked. I unchecked it and voilà!

Thanks for taking some time for me, folks. :-)

Nick

Answer 2

The setting Stefan mentioned is located in Tools> Language at the bottom of the dialog. However, I tend to believe that it is more likely to be a Language issue — Some or all of the text carries a Language attribute for which Mac Word does not provide Hyphenator Proofing Tools. See this KB for details: Proofing tools available in Office for Mac - Office Support

Select the text then go to Tools> Language To select the correct one then click OK.

Answer 3

In affected documents, is one or more text ranges formatted as "Do not check spelling or grammar"? That option would prevent hyphenation from working.

Answer 4

Hello Bob

Thanks for your quick response.

Hyphenation is not grayed

It just doesn't work in certain documents.

Nick

Answer 5

Re Hyphenation please see

Word - Why is the hyphenation zone suddenly grayed

As for a user manual there really isn't one. Things change too fast. The closest to a user manual is Help> Word Help in the menu bar. Even that isn't always what you'd like it to be. Of course, specific questions are welcome here. Be sure to specify Office & macOS Version Numbers when submitting a question.