# How to turn on automatic hyphenation in Word

The Word hyphenation feature is a practical way to correctly separate words at the end of lines. You can turn it on and off as you please. When deactivated, words are not split in two. Instead, a new line is started for words that are too long to fit on the previous line.

## How to turn on automatic hyphenation in Word quick guide

1. Open your Word document and select **Layout** from the menu at the top of the screen.
2. Click on **Hyphenation**. A drop-down menu will now appear.
3. Select the desired type of hyphenation (**None**, **Automatic** or **Manual**).

## How to turn on and customise automatic hyphenation in Word

If you decide to use the hyphenation feature in a Word document, you have the option of using it for the **whole** document or **for individual paragraphs**. You can even **manually define specifications**.

Tip The instructions shown here apply to Office versions from 2016 onwards and Microsoft 365. If you are using a different version of Office, the steps may differ slightly.

### Enabling automatic hyphenation in Word

In Word, hyphenation is disabled in the default settings. You can activate it by doing the following:

1. Click on **Layout** in the ribbon at the top of the screen.
2. Select the option **Hyphenation**.
3. Put a tick next to **Automatic**.

[![Image: Word: Activate hyphenation](https://www.ionos.co.uk/digitalguide/fileadmin/_processed_/3/1/csm_turn-on-word-hyphenation_3a42389bbd.webp "Word: Activate hyphenation")](https://www.ionos.co.uk/digitalguide/fileadmin/DigitalGuide/Screenshots_2024/turn-on-word-hyphenation.png) You can activate automatic hyphenation in Word with just a few clicks. Automatic hyphenation is now enabled for the entire document.

### Deactivating Word hyphenation for individual paragraphs

If you don’t want to use the hyphenation feature in certain paragraphs, simply do the following:

1. Select the paragraph(s) where you don’t want hyphenation applied.
2. Click on the right mouse button to open the drop-down menu.
3. Click on the menu item **Paragraph…**.
4. Go to the tab **Line and Page Breaks**.
5. Put a tick in the field **Don’t hyphenate** and click OK.

[![Image: Word: Turn off hyphenation for certain paragraphs](https://www.ionos.co.uk/digitalguide/fileadmin/_processed_/f/d/csm_turn-off-word-hyphenation-paragraph_c9b52d2660.webp "Word: Turn off hyphenation for certain paragraphs")](https://www.ionos.co.uk/digitalguide/fileadmin/DigitalGuide/Screenshots_2024/turn-off-word-hyphenation-paragraph.png) You can deactivate hyphenation in Word for selected paragraphs or text passages. ### Customising Word hyphenation

In addition to this approach, there are other ways to customise hyphenation in Word:

1. Click on the arrow next to **Hyphenation** in the **Layout** tab.
2. Select **Manual**. Here, you can use different types of hyphenation.
3. In the Manual Hyphenation dialog box, you can set individual breakpoints and then confirm them when you’re done.

[![Image: Word: Individually adjust hyphenation](https://www.ionos.co.uk/digitalguide/fileadmin/_processed_/b/9/csm_word-manual-hyphenation_11d85c2b83.webp "Word: Individually adjust hyphenation")](https://www.ionos.co.uk/digitalguide/fileadmin/DigitalGuide/Screenshots_2024/word-manual-hyphenation.png) You can also manually create rules for hyphenation in Word. ### Inserting protected hyphens using a shortcut

You also have the option to set up protected (non-breaking) hyphens. You can do this by highlighting a passage in the text and then pressing the [Word key combination](https://www.ionos.co.uk/digitalguide/online-marketing/online-sales/word-shortcuts/) **\[Ctrl\] + \[Shift\] + \[hyphen\]**.

## How to enable hyphenation in Word for Mac

With a Mac, you can switch on hyphenation in the same way you would on Windows. Click on **Layout** at the top and then select **Hyphenation**. Place a tick next to **Automatic Hyphenation** and click OK.

### Turning on and adjusting manual hyphenation in Word for Mac

Hyphenation in Word can also be set up manually on Apple computers. To do this, you can follow the steps listed above for Windows. Alternatively, you can click on **Hyphenation** in the **Extras** menu and select **Manual**.

Word will now recognise all the different options for hyphenation. You can select the positions you want for hyphenation in the **Suggested hyphenation** field.

If you want to manually set up hyphenation **for a specific area** in the document, simply **highlight** the section of the text before performing the steps above.

### Customising hyphenation in Word for Mac

If you are a Mac user and want to separate text and syllables in a Word document using custom settings, do the following:

1. In the **Layout** menu, select **Hyphenation Options**.
2. Tick the box next to **Automatically hyphenate document**.
3. In the field labelled **Hyphenation zone**, you can define the distance you want between the last part of a word and the right-hand margin.
4. With **Limit consecutive hyphens to**, you can specify how many consecutive lines can end with hyphens.


This is a markdown version of: [https://www.ionos.co.uk/digitalguide/online-marketing/online-sales/word-hyphenation/](https://www.ionos.co.uk/digitalguide/online-marketing/online-sales/word-hyphenation/) for AI/LLM consumption.