What should I do to hyphenate the text?

[Dida]

What should I do to hyphenate the text within the text box? When I check the box in Document Setup -> Hyphenator nothing happened.

Thank you for the help.

[a.l.e]

you have to first pick the right language for the hyphenation (it's not the same as the UI language).

how you do that, depends on the scribus version you're using: which one are you using?

[Dida]

Thank you for the reply. I am using Scribus 1.4.6 on Windows 7.

[a.l.e]

file > document setup > hyphenator: and pick a language...

then you can select a single (linked set of) text frame(s) and hyphenate it with "extras > hyphenate text"

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[aureliobk]

Hello there,

I have a similar problem. My text does not hyphenate when i copy and paste text from somewhere else. Hyphenation only works, when I type text. But that is not an option, as i have to copy and paste large text-blocks to create a catalogue. Is there a workaround or setting that I can use?

I'm working on a mac, with Scribus version 1.4.6 (and tried 1.5.3 too).

Thanks in advance for help.

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forum aureliobk.

I've just done some quick tests and the hyphenator looks to be working fine with pasted text in Scribus 1.4.6 on Windows 10.

I copied the entire text of Frankenstein from a text editor, pasted it into a new text frame in a new document, selected menu "Extras -> Hyphenate Text", and the text is hyphenated as expected. It also worked correctly when I used right-click + "Get Text" instead of pasting.

Resizing the text frame shows that that the text is also rehyphenated as expected.

From what I can recall, this worked on OS X too. I didn't use it much but I can't remember having problems with it.

Having said all that, using "Extras -> Hyphenate Text" before pasting the text in shows that the text isn't hyphenated. If there's no text to hyphenate Scribus could be ignoring the command. Could this be what has happened?

You might need to supply some example text and detail the exact work-flow you're using.

[aureliobk]

Oh, this is brilliant Gary, that solved my issue. I did not know that I had to run "Extras > Hyphenate" to make it work, I just had activated the Hyphenation settings in the preferences and expected it to work automatically. But that's ok, now it works as expected. I am about to cancel my inDesign subscription and am hoping to be able to settle completely with Scribus. So thanks for the welcome, and again for the quick help.

[GarryP]

You're very welcome.

Personally I think the hyphenation menu items are in the wrong place. I would have expected them in "Item" - or a separate "Text" menu - but that's probably just a historical issue.

It's worth mentioning - probably more for typographical beginners, rather than yourself - that while the automatic hyphenation feature is generally good it is usually good practice to look at what it has done and then manually change things that don't look quite right. (Note: You can insert a Soft Hyphen with "Insert -> Character -> Soft Hyphen".)

See the attached - very crude - example where "superstition" has been hyphenated automatically on the left and manually on the right. (The rest of the typography is horrible, it's just to quickly show the difference.) The hyphenator does its best but it's not perfect.

Also, as a tip, if you're looking to get nicer justified text then you can have a look at "Properties Palette / Text / Optical Margins". The left margin doesn't work properly - in 1.4.6 at least - but the right one does.

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