Do’s for line-break hyphenation

Do’s for line-break hyphenation

Put the hyphen at the end of the line, not the beginning of the next line:

com-
pass
not
com
-pass

Make sure each component of the word has at least 3 letters (unless the hyphen occurs after a 2-letter prefix or in a compound word whose first part has only 2 letters – see below):

align-
ment
not
a-
lignment

You can divide the word:

  • between syllables

sport-
ing
not
sp-
orting

  • between prefixes and base words (see Prefixes for a list of common prefixes)

geo-
logical

ultra-
light

  • between the 2 halves of a compound word (see Compound words for more examples of such words)

tooth-
ache

up-
beat

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