Hyphenation Chaos in a Narrow Column
A four-page newsletter uses a two-column grid with columns 58 mm wide. Body text is 9/12 pt in a serif face. The client complains about rivers of white space, words breaking awkwardly across lines, and one paragraph where 'internationalization' hyphenates as 'interna-tionaliza-tion' across three lines. The paragraph style has hyphenation on with a 3-hyphen limit but the hyphenation and justification settings were never touched. Justification is set to left-aligned, so the client is confused why hyphenation matters at all. The document also has 'Balance Ragged Lines' off, and a 12-word minimum word spacing.
1. Explain why hyphenation quality is poor and what specific settings you would change to improve it without changing the typeface or size.
Read the worked answer
Left-aligned text still hyphenates; hyphenation just controls where breaks occur, and with default settings InDesign breaks at the first opportunity, producing awkward splits.
Changes to make in the Hyphenation dialog (Paragraph panel menu):
- Words with at Least: raise from the default (often 5–6) to 6–7 so short words don't break.
- After First: raise to 3 so the first fragment isn't a stub like 'in-'.
- Before Last: raise to 3–4 so the tail isn't a stub.
- Hyphen Limit: reduce to 2 consecutive hyphens to avoid stacked hyphens.
- Hyphenate Capitalized Words: off, so proper nouns stay intact.
- Optionally add a custom hyphenation entry for 'internationalization' to force a preferred break point.
Also enable Balance Ragged Lines in the Paragraph panel for a cleaner rag. The 12-word minimum word spacing only affects justified text, so it isn't the culprit here - but confirm justification is truly left-aligned and not 'justify with last line left'.
2. After your changes the rag looks better, but the client now sees a line where the last word is hyphenated and the following line begins with a hyphenated fragment, creating a visual stack. What is the diagnostic step and the fix?
Read the worked answer
Diagnostic: turn on Hyphenation preview isn't available, so instead use Edit > Preferences > Composition > Highlight > H&J Violations (or the Composition preferences) to highlight lines that violate hyphenation/justification rules. Also check the Preflight panel for H&J violations if the profile includes them.
Fix options, in order of least disruption:
- Reduce the Hyphen Limit to 1 for that paragraph style, or apply a 'no stacked hyphens' rule via the style.
- Add a custom hyphenation exception or a discretionary hyphen (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+-) at a better break point.
- Nudge the column width slightly or adjust tracking by a small amount (e.g., -5) on the affected paragraph - avoid global tracking changes.
- If the style is used broadly, create a child style for narrow columns with tighter hyphenation limits rather than editing the base style.