Hyphenation Generally Archives - Code by Der Mundschenk & Cie.

What hyphenation algorithm is used?

The hyphenation algorithm used by wp-Typography is based on the 1983 Stanford Ph.D. thesis of professor Frank Liang: Word Hy-phen-a-tion by Com-puter. In this thesis, Dr. Liang also developed an English (United States) pattern file for use with his algorithm. Liang’s English pattern file was updated in 1991 by Peter Breitenlohner.

The resulting algorithm—with the English (United States) patterns—finds 90% of all allowed hyphenation points identified in the Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary with a 0% error rate. Patterns for many additional languages have been developed […]

Can I control how a specific word is hyphenated?

Yes. The administrative panel for wp-Typography includes an editable exceptions list. […]

Does hyphenation affect search?

It depends on the search engine. Google and Yahoo properly handle the soft-hyphen character. Microsoft and Ask improperly treat soft-hyphens as word breaks. Fortunately, Google and Yahoo comprise more than 90% of the search market.

Because WordPress search queries the database—and hyphenation is not stored to the database-local search is not affected. […]

Which browsers support hyphenation?

Starting with Internet Explorer 6, Firefox 3, Safari 2, and Opera 8, all major web browsers have offered full support for online hyphenation. […]

How does hyphenation work?

The soft-hyphen is an invisible character that communicates to web browsers allowable line breaks within words. When a web browser wraps a line at a soft-hyphen, a hyphen is shown at line’s end.

Similar to the soft-hyphen, the zero-space character communicates allowable line breaks within strings of text. But unlike the soft-hyphen, it does not show a hyphen at line’s end. This is ideal for forcing consistent wrapping of long URLs. It also can be used to force line breaks in uncooperative web browsers after hard-hyphens in words like “zero-space” and “soft-hyphen”. […]

Why hyphenate?

Hyphenation increases the visual appeal of your website. When justifying text without hyphenation, word spacing is distractingly large. With left-aligned text, the right edge will be unnecessarily ragged. […]

What hyphenation language patterns are included?

wp-Typography has multi-language support. Pattern libraries are included for:

Afrikaans,
Armenian,
Assamese,
Basque,
Belarusian,
Bengali,
Bulgarian,
Catalan,
Chinese Pinyin (Latin),
Church Slavonic,
Croatian,
Czech,
Danish,
Dutch,
English (United Kingdom),
English (United States),
Esperanto,
Estonian,
Finnish,
French,
Friulan,
Galician,
Georgian,
German,
German (Traditional),
Greek (Ancient),
Greek (Modern Monotonic),
Greek (Modern Polytonic),
Gujarati,
Hindi,
Hungarian,
Icelandic,
Indonesian,
Interlingua,
Irish,
Italian,
Latin,
Latin (Classical),
Latin (Liturgical),

[…]

My hyphenation settings are ignored. What’s wrong?

Recent browser versions support the hyphens CSS property to enable hyphenation. If you want to the finer control over hyphenation that wp-Typography offers, make sure that the your theme stylesheet does not contain

(or one of its vendor-prefixed variants like -webkit-hyphens). If you can’t remove the property from the theme’s stylesheet, make sure to add

in a child theme stylesheet or wp-Typography’s injected CSS. (Don’t forget the vendor-prefixed variations!) […]

Why are words hyphenated incorrectly or not at all?

This plugin includes hyphenation patterns for over 50 languages. Please make sure your website’s primary language is selected. wp-Typography preferences can be set in the WordPress admin section under Settings > wp-Typography. […]