Hyphenation
From Scribus Documentation Project
Hyphenation is an important part of typography, because a well-hyphenated text eases readability and doesn't disturb the eye of a reader by leaving white “holes” in it. The smaller the columns in a text frame are, the more important is hyphenation, especially if the text is justified. Just take a look at a newspaper and you know what it means.
There are some rules of thumb you can apply if you want to produce a layout of higher quality. These rules are reflected in the default hyphenation settings in Scribus: don't leave less than three letters at the end of a line, and don't use more than two consecutive hyphenations. This may not be suitable for a newspaper, but if you want to produce something special, you are well advised to follow these rules.
The hyphenator tab in the Preferences and the Document Setup offers you some more options that need an explanation. If you check “Hyphenation Suggestions”, Scribus will ask you to confirm or change the suggestions derived from the hyphenation dictionaries. This may be annoying, since Scribus will ask for each word in the text. It may be necessary, though, as Scribus uses the same dictionary files as OpenOffice.org, and they are far from perfect.
If you agree with a suggestion, click “Accept”, if not, you can place a hyphen with the - key elsewhere or add a new one. If you don't want this word to be hyphenated, click “Skip”. To abort the hyphenation of your text, click “Cancel”.
By default, Scribus doesn't hyphenate text. The regular way is to select a text frame and use Extras > Hyphenate Text. You can change this behaviour by checking “Hyphenate Text Automatically During Typing” in the “Hyphenator” tab of the Preferences and the Document Setup. This means that each text that will be inserted after checking this option will be hyphenated automatically. Texts that are already there won't be affected.
Another important option is the choice of the standard language for your document, as each language has its own hyphenation rules. By default this is the language of your system. But if you create a document in another language, it's better to switch the standard language to prevent ugly or nonsensical hyphenation.
If you are working with a document in more than one language, you can apply different languages to text frames by selecting them and choosing another hyphenation language in the Text tab of the Properties Palette:
The result of automatic hyphenation may not be sufficient, and you might want to add some additional hyphens. You can do this, but don't use the – key – insert a smart hyphen instead. Smart hyphens are invisible in a regular text. They only become active if a hyphenation is actually possible. To insert a smart hyphen, use Insert > Character > Smart Hyphen or press Ctrl+Shift+- on the keyboard. The shortcut may not work in some environments, but you can assign another one in the Preferences.



