Cancellation of hyphenation?

[Woody44]

I write and edit books for publication through Amazon KDP and other print-on-demand services. I do not use Adobe InDesign to format books for print -- I do this using word processing software. I started by using Microsoft Word, which is what I had available at the time. I have now progressed through FreeOffice 2018, SoftMaker Office 2021, and SoftMaker Office 2024 to the current SoftMaker Office 2026.

When formatting books for print, I work with automatic hyphenation enabled. Justification is always set to "Justified" (left and right margins justified). I do no want to disable auto-hyphenation globally, but occasionally a word will auto-hyphenate with a very short syllable (too often only two characters) at the end of a line. This makes reading that word more awkward and difficult. I would like to be able to instruct the word processor to NOT hyphenate that particular word.

In Microsoft Word, the best I can do is to disable auto-hyphenation for the entire paragraph that contains the word. Unfortunately, this may also affect other words in the paragraph, and it can result in some lines with visually excessive space between words.

Is there an option in TextMaker to disable auto-hyphenation for individual words? If so, how do I do it?

If this is not possible in TextMaker, please add this as a feature for possible inclusion in a future update.

[Jossi]

Set the cursor to the position before the first letter of the word and press Ctrl+-. (If this doesn’t work, try Cmd+-).

[Woody44]

Set the cursor to the position before the first letter of the word and press Ctrl+-. (If this doesn’t work, try Cmd+-).

Purrfect!!! You didn't specify that it has to be the "minus" from the alphabetical keyboard, not the one on the number pad, but it works. That's going to save me a LOT of work.

Thank you.

Where is that mentioned in the User manual? What happens if the document is subsequently opened in Microsoft Word?

[Jossi]

Where is that mentioned in the User manual? What happens if the document is subsequently opened in Microsoft Word?

Well, it must have been in the manual at some point in the past – after all, that’s where I've learned it from. In the present version of the manual, it’s no longer there, I don’t know why. As far as I can see, Word adopts this setting, too.

[Woody44]

I tried it in Word 2016 and it didn't work.

[Jossi]

I could only test it with Word 2019 for Mac. This is the only version I’ve got.

[Woody44]

I have access to Microsoft Office 2016. The work-around I found in Word is to put the cursor at the place where Word wants to hyphenate, and insert a special symbol for "no width, non-break." It accomplishes the job, but the non-breaking character causes the word to be flagged as misspelled.

[stascheit]

TextMaker 2024 and earlier used Ctrl+-(alphabetical keyboard) for Soft hyphen and Ctrl+-(Num pad) for En dash.
TextMaker 2026 uses Ctrl+- (for both alphabetical keyboard and Num pad) for zoom out. And Ctrl++ for zoom in.
And Soft hyphen Is now Alt+Ctrl+- in 2026.

I think, Soft hyphen is not really the correct solution to cancel hyphenation.
The only real solution for TextMaker (and for MS Word as well) should be:
Select the whole hyphenated word and set the language to "No language" on the ribbon tab "Review" or in the status bar.

[martin-k]

TextMaker 2024 and earlier used Ctrl+-(alphabetical keyboard) for Soft hyphen and Ctrl+-(Num pad) for En dash.
TextMaker 2026 uses Ctrl+- (both alphabetical keyboard and Num pad) for zoom out. And Ctrl++ for zoom in.

I think, Soft hyphen is not really the correct solution to cancel hyphenation.
The only real solution for TextMaker (and for MS Word as well) should be:
Select the whole hyphenated word and set the language to "No language" on the ribbon tab "Review" or in the status bar.

... and to make that easier to use, create a character style with only the property "No language" and assign it to a key press.

[Woody44]

The various responses are confusing me.

Ideally, I need a solution that works in both TextMaker and Word, because in addition to formatting my own books for print, I also format books for other authors. The others use Microsoft Word, so a solution that I can apply in TextMaker that doesn't open correctly in Word isn't a useful solution.

[Woody44]

I think, Soft hyphen is not really the correct solution to cancel hyphenation.
The only real solution for TextMaker (and for MS Word as well) should be:
Select the whole hyphenated word and set the language to "No language" on the ribbon tab "Review" or in the status bar.

I don't use the ribbon, I use the Classic interface.