How do I get LaTeX to hyphenate a word that contains a dash

Question

In a LaTeX document I m writing  I get an overfull hbox warning because of the word  multi-disciplinary   which happens to be rendered at the end of a line   I can get rid of this particular warning by changing it into multi-discipli -nary  but the same problem will happen elsewhere  since this word is used a lot in the paper   I d like to use the  hyphenation   command instead  but obviously my tentative  hyphenation multi-disci-pli-na-ry  does not work  because it does not understand the first dash correctly   What incantation do I need to get correct indentation in a word that already contains a dash   Bonus question  Where could I have found the answer to that question myself

User · Answer

multi-disciplinary will not be hyphenated  as explained by kennytm  But multi- -disciplinary has the same hyphenation opportunities that multidisciplinary has   I admit that I don t know why this works  It is different from the behaviour described here  emphasis mine       The command  - inserts a discretionary hyphen into a word  This also becomes the only point where hyphenation is allowed in this word

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multi hskip0pt- hskip0pt disciplinary   You can e g  define like   def    hskip0pt    and then write  multi  -  disciplinary   Note that the babel Russian language package has its own set of dashes that do not prohibit hyphenation      double quotation tilde  for example

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I had the same problem  I use hyphenat plus the following macro    RequirePackage hyphenat   RequirePackage expl3      The following defs make sure words that contain an explicit  -   hyphen  are still hyphenated the normal way  and double- and triple hyphens keep working the way they should  Just don t use a  -  as the last token of your document  Also note that  -  is now a macro that is not fully expandable   ExplSyntaxOn    latex2e doesn t like commands starting with  end   apparently expl3 doesn t have any problems with it  cs new Npn  hyphenfix emdash c  ---   cs new Npn  hyphenfix endash c  --    cs new Npn  hyphenfix discardnext NN  1 2  1     catcode  -  active   cs new protected Npn -       futurelet hyphenfix nexttok hyphenfix i w     cs new Npn  hyphenfix i w        cs if eq NNTF  hyphenfix nexttok  -            discard the next  -  token          hyphenfix discardnext NN  futurelet hyphenfix nexttok hyphenfix ii w                   from package hyphenat          hyp           cs new Npn  hyphenfix ii w        cs if eq NNTF  hyphenfix nexttok  -            hyphenfix discardnext NN  hyphenfix emdash c                  hyphenfix endash c            ExplSyntaxOff   Note that this uses the expl3 package from latex3    It makes the - an active character that scans forward to see if it is followed by more dashes  If so  it stays a -  to make sure -- and --- keep working  If not  it becomes the  hyp command from hyphenat  enabling word breaks in the rest of the word  This is a generic solution that makes all words that contain explicit hyphens hyphenate normally    Note that - becomes a macro that is not fully expandable  so try to include this after loading other packages that may not expect - to be a macro  Edit  This is my second version  the first version was less robust when a   or   followed a hyphen  This one is not  but unlike the first version the - in this version is not fully expandable

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From https   texfaq org FAQ-nohyph      TeX won   t hyphenate a word that   s already been hyphenated  For   example  the  caricature  English surname Smyth-Postlethwaite wouldn   t   hyphenate  which could be troublesome  This is correct English   typesetting style  it may not be correct for other languages   but if   needs must  you can replace the hyphen in the name with a  hyph   command  defined    def hyph - penalty0 hskip0pt relax        This is not the sort of thing this FAQ would ordinarily recommend      The hyphenat package defines a bundle of such commands  for   introducing hyphenation points at various punctuation characters       Or you could  newcommand a command that expands to multi-discipli -nary  use Search   Replace All to replace existing words

User · Answer

The problem  as KennyTM noted  is that LaTeX won t hyphenate words with dashes in them  Luckily  there s a standard package  part of ncctools  that addresses that very problem  called extdash  This defines new hyphen and dash commands that do not disrupt hyphenation  and which can allow or prevent line breaks at the hyphen dash  I prefer to use it with the shortcuts option  so I can use  e g    -  rather than  Hyphdash  Here s what you want    usepackage shortcuts  extdash      multi - disciplinary  To prevent breaking at that hyphen  use multi   disciplinary   Aside  The Chicago Manual of Style advises dropping the hyphens attaching affixes like  multi   unless the word is ambiguous or unintelligible without it

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I use package hyphenat and then write compound words like Finnish word Internet-yhteys  Eng  Internet connection  as Internet hyp yhteys  Looks goofy but seems to be the most elegant way I ve found

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I answered something similar here  LaTeX breaking up too many words   I said    you should set a hyphenation penalty somewhere in your preamble    hyphenpenalty 750   The value of 750 suited my needs for a two column layout on letter paper  8 5x11 in  with a 12 pt font  Adjust the value to suit your needs  The higher the number  the less hyphenation will occur  You may also want to have a look at the hyphenatpackage  it provides a bit more than just hyphenation penalty

User · Answer

To avoid hyphenation in already hyphenated word I used non-breaking space   in combination with backward space     For example  command   3         -       D   used in the text  suppress hyphenation in word 3-D  Probably not the best solution  but it worked for me

[latex] How do I get LaTeX to hyphenate a word that contains a dash?

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