How to Remove Word Hyphenation in Microsoft Publisher: A Comprehensive Guide

Microsoft Publisher is a powerful desktop publishing software that allows you to create a variety of professional-looking documents, from brochures and newsletters to flyers and posters. One of the features that Publisher automatically applies is hyphenation, which breaks long words at the end of a line to improve text flow and layout. While hyphenation can be beneficial in many situations, there are instances when you might prefer to remove it, particularly when dealing with specific formatting requirements or when the hyphenated words look visually unappealing. This comprehensive guide will walk you through the various methods to disable or adjust hyphenation in Microsoft Publisher, ensuring your text appears exactly as you intend.

Understanding Hyphenation in Microsoft Publisher

Before diving into the methods, it’s crucial to understand how hyphenation works in Publisher. By default, Publisher uses an algorithm to determine where to break words at the end of a line. This ensures that text blocks fill their allotted space effectively, preventing large gaps and uneven margins. While this automated system works well for most cases, you may encounter situations where:

• Hyphenated words appear awkward or break in the wrong place.
• You prefer a more traditional, non-hyphenated look for your text.
• You’re working with specific brand guidelines that prohibit hyphenation.

Therefore, knowing how to control hyphenation is essential for achieving professional-looking results. Let’s explore the different techniques to tackle this issue.

Method 1: Disabling Hyphenation for an Entire Text Box

The simplest method to remove hyphenation is to disable it for an entire text box. This is a quick fix and works well if you want to avoid hyphenation throughout the entire content of a specific text area. Here’s how to do it:

1. Open your Publisher document: Launch Microsoft Publisher and open the document you want to work on.
2. Select the text box: Click on the text box where you want to disable hyphenation. You will see selection handles appearing around the box, indicating it is active.
3. Go to the Text Box Tools Format tab: With the text box selected, you will notice the ‘Text Box Tools’ tab appearing in the Publisher ribbon. Click on this tab to access the text box formatting options.
4. Find the Text Group: Within the ‘Text Box Tools Format’ tab, look for the ‘Text’ group. It’s usually located towards the left side.
5. Click the Hyphenation button: Inside the ‘Text’ group, you will find a button labelled ‘Hyphenation’. It typically has an icon with a word partially split by a hyphen. Click on this button.
6. Uncheck the “Hyphenate this story” box: A dialog box will appear with options related to hyphenation. In this dialog box, find the option labelled “Hyphenate this story”. By default, this box is likely checked. Click on the checkbox to uncheck it. This will remove the checkmark and signal Publisher not to hyphenate the text within this particular text box.
7. Click OK: After unchecking the box, click the ‘OK’ button to save your changes. Publisher will immediately remove all hyphenation from the text box, adjusting the text flow as needed.

That’s it! The text within the selected text box should now be displayed without any hyphenation. This method is very handy when you want a clean, un-hyphenated look in a particular section of your publication, such as titles, headings, or short paragraphs.

Method 2: Modifying Hyphenation Settings in the Options Dialog

If you want more control over how Publisher handles hyphenation, you can modify the hyphenation settings in the Publisher Options dialog. This allows you to adjust various aspects of the hyphenation algorithm, including the hyphenation zone and the minimum number of characters before and after a hyphen. These settings will apply to all new text boxes created in the current publication and, potentially, to existing ones depending on how they were set up.

1. Open the Publisher Options: To access the Publisher Options, click on the ‘File’ tab located on the top-left of the Publisher window. In the ‘File’ menu, click on ‘Options’ at the bottom of the list. This action will open the ‘Publisher Options’ dialog box.
2. Navigate to the Advanced Section: In the ‘Publisher Options’ dialog, look at the list of options on the left side. Click on ‘Advanced’. This section contains settings for various aspects of Publisher’s behaviour.
3. Scroll to the Editing Options Section: Scroll down the right panel until you find the ‘Editing Options’ section. You may need to scroll through various other sections to locate it.
4. Find the Hyphenation Section: Within the ‘Editing Options’ section, locate the ‘Hyphenation’ area. This section contains settings related to hyphenation.
5. Adjust the Hyphenation Zone: The ‘Hyphenation zone’ setting determines how close to the right margin Publisher will hyphenate a word. A smaller value allows hyphenation more frequently, while a larger value reduces the chances of hyphenation. Try increasing this value if you want less hyphenation. For completely removing, you can set it to a very high number.
6. Adjust the Minimum Characters before a Hyphen: The setting ‘Minimum characters before a hyphen’ controls how many letters a word must have before a hyphenation can occur. Increase this value to avoid hyphenating shorter words.
7. Adjust the Minimum Characters after a Hyphen: Similar to the above, the ‘Minimum characters after a hyphen’ controls the minimum number of letters a word must have after a hyphen. Increase it to avoid very short word fragments after hyphenation.
8. Enable/Disable Automatic Hyphenation (optional): There is an option to ‘Automatically hyphenate new publications’. If unchecked, hyphenation will be turned off for all newly created publications. Note, this setting will not affect existing publications.
9. Click OK: Once you have adjusted these settings to your preference, click the ‘OK’ button to save your changes. Publisher will then apply these new hyphenation rules for all the text boxes that has ‘Hyphenate this story’ checkbox enabled.

By adjusting these options, you can fine-tune the hyphenation behavior of Publisher to better fit your preferences. Using this method will give you a more customized control over the document wide hyphenation.

Method 3: Removing Hyphenation from Specific Paragraphs

Sometimes, you might not want to remove hyphenation for an entire text box but only for specific paragraphs within it. Publisher provides a way to do this by adjusting the paragraph settings. Here’s how:

1. Select the paragraphs: Open the Publisher document and select the paragraph(s) where you wish to remove the hyphenation. You can do this by clicking and dragging your mouse to highlight the desired text.
2. Open the Paragraph Dialog: Right-click inside the selected text and choose the ‘Paragraph’ option from the context menu. This action opens the ‘Paragraph’ dialog box. You can also go to the ‘Home’ tab in the ribbon and find the ‘Paragraph’ group. Click the small arrow at the bottom right of the ‘Paragraph’ group to open the ‘Paragraph’ dialog.
3. Go to the Line and Paragraph Breaks Tab: In the ‘Paragraph’ dialog box, you’ll see several tabs. Click on the ‘Line and Paragraph Breaks’ tab.
4. Uncheck the Hyphenation Option: Under the ‘Hyphenation’ section of the ‘Line and Paragraph Breaks’ tab, find the checkbox labelled ‘Allow words to be broken across lines’. Make sure that is unchecked. If the box is checked, click on it to remove the checkmark. This will turn off hyphenation for the selected paragraphs.
5. Click OK: After unchecking the box, click the ‘OK’ button to save your changes. Publisher will immediately remove all hyphenation from the selected paragraphs, adjusting the text flow as needed.

This method allows for granular control, enabling you to selectively disable hyphenation in specific areas of your document, giving more control over the layout and readability of the publication. This is perfect for controlling hyphenation on elements like quoted texts or important phrases that you don’t want broken by hyphenation.

Method 4: Using Non-Breaking Spaces and Hyphens

For very precise control over word breaks and hyphenation, you can use non-breaking spaces and non-breaking hyphens. These special characters ensure that words and phrases remain intact on a single line. While not technically ‘removing’ hyphenation, they can effectively prevent it in specific situations.

Using Non-Breaking Spaces

A non-breaking space prevents a line break from occurring at that space. This can be used to keep two words together on the same line.

1. Place your cursor: Put the text insertion cursor where you want to insert the non-breaking space. This is usually where a normal space character is located between two words.
2. Insert a non-breaking space:
   • Using the Insert Menu: Go to the ‘Insert’ tab on the ribbon. In the ‘Symbols’ group, click ‘Symbol’, then ‘More Symbols’. In the ‘Symbol’ dialog, go to the ‘Special Characters’ tab. Select ‘Non-breaking Space’ and click ‘Insert’.
   • Using Keyboard Shortcut: You can also use the keyboard shortcut `Ctrl + Shift + Spacebar` to insert a non-breaking space.
3. Repeat as needed: Continue to insert non-breaking spaces wherever necessary to prevent line breaks.

Using Non-Breaking Hyphens

A non-breaking hyphen prevents the hyphenated word from being split across lines. You would typically use this instead of a standard hyphen when you want a word combination to stay on the same line.

1. Place your cursor: Position the text cursor where you want to insert the non-breaking hyphen. This is where you would normally put a regular hyphen in your word.
2. Insert a non-breaking hyphen:
   • Using the Insert Menu: Go to the ‘Insert’ tab on the ribbon. In the ‘Symbols’ group, click ‘Symbol’, then ‘More Symbols’. In the ‘Symbol’ dialog, go to the ‘Special Characters’ tab. Select ‘Non-breaking Hyphen’ and click ‘Insert’.
   • Using a Character Code: Although a direct keyboard shortcut is not available, you can use character codes. Type ‘2011’ into your document. Then, highlight the ‘2011’ and press `Alt + X`. This will convert the character code to a non-breaking hyphen.
3. Repeat as needed: Continue to insert non-breaking hyphens wherever necessary to prevent line breaks within specific words or phrases.

These techniques offer precise control, which can be valuable in specific cases where you want to keep a phrase or multi-word term together on a single line. While time-consuming, they allow fine-tuning of each break in your text.

Best Practices for Managing Hyphenation

Here are some best practices for managing hyphenation in Microsoft Publisher:

• Be Consistent: Choose one approach to hyphenation and stick to it throughout your document. Consistency provides a professional and polished look.
• Check your typography: Some font styles look better with hyphenation than others. Review your text with the chosen font to see if hyphenation suits it or not.
• Preview before printing: Before finalizing your document, preview it carefully to make sure the layout and hyphenation appear as expected.
• Use Different techniques for different use cases: Disable hyphenation on headlines and short lines, adjust the paragraph level setting on the body text, use non breaking spaces to keep items together.
• Be mindful of line lengths: When disabling hyphenation, be aware of the line lengths. If line lengths are very short due to the text box width, the resulting text may appear with large gaps. Adjust the text box size if necessary.
• Adjust kerning if needed: In some cases, adjusted hyphenation can lead to very tight spacing or too much space between characters. You may need to adjust kerning or letter spacing to compensate.

Conclusion

Hyphenation is a helpful tool in Microsoft Publisher, but it’s not always desirable. By understanding the different methods to remove or adjust it—from disabling it for an entire text box to fine-tuning specific paragraphs or utilizing non-breaking characters—you can gain complete control over your document’s layout and readability. Whether you prefer a clean, non-hyphenated look or need to adhere to specific formatting guidelines, Publisher provides the flexibility you need to achieve the results you desire. Experiment with these techniques to find the methods that work best for your publishing needs and elevate the visual quality of your Microsoft Publisher documents. By mastering hyphenation control, you’ll be able to produce professional-looking publications with enhanced readability and visual appeal. This comprehensive guide equips you with the knowledge and steps needed to remove or manage hyphenation effectively in your Publisher projects. Remember to preview your document frequently as you modify hyphenation settings to ensure the desired layout is achieved. Now go forth and create beautifully formatted, hyphenation-controlled publications with ease!