Does hyphenation work or not?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Simboubou

No, "me-mory" is fine. "Pi-cked" is not as good. And worse, I sometime see "th-ing"

It's just that I try to setup the hyphenation so that it doesn't hyphenate too often.
I'm usually fine with no hyphens, but I've grown more aware of stretched lines. So I'd like to have hyphens, only not too aggressive ones. That's why I'm trying to set the min lenght to higher values.

The kobotouchExtended driver, you say ? Is that when I use calibre epub to kepub conversion ? Or is it when I transfert the file ? How do I change that, is that the "extra css" tab when converting ?

When I convert books to kepub, I don't select the "activate hyphenation" option. So hyphens are only on when I set my kobo to Justify.

Thanks !

EDIT : ok, to I edited the hyphenation.css of KoboTouchExtended to this:

* {
	-webkit-hyphens: auto;
	-moz-hyphens: auto;
	hyphens: auto;

	-webkit-hyphenate-after: 4;
	-webkit-hyphenate-before: 4;
	-webkit-hyphenate-lines: 2;
	hyphenate-after: 4;
	hyphenate-before: 4;
	hyphenate-lines: 2;
}

h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, td {
	-moz-hyphens: none !important;
	-webkit-hyphens: none !important;
	hyphens: none !important;
}

Then forced the hyphenation during kepub convertion. And I STILL have two-letters hyphens.

RE-EDIT: Gosh, I think it worked with -webkit-hyphenate-limit-after.

There is a better solution. Try my better hyphenation dictionary. I use it and so do a lot of other people.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=252405

[Simboubou]

Originally Posted by shalym

It should actually be "mem-ory". Words are supposed to break at the syllable break.

If I saw that, it would take me out of the story more than the gaps would.

Shari

Ah, thank you for that ! That's interesting : I'm French, and while when speaking english I would definitely pronounce that "mem'ry", when reading my eyes are expecting hyphens based on a french "me-mo-ry".

A couple more examples like this I came across while reading were "alarm-ing", "usu-ally" or "Riv-iera". Do they all seem correct to you ?

Originally Posted by JSWolf

There is a better solution. Try my better hyphenation dictionary. I use it and so do a lot of other people.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=252405

I do use this, both the french and english one (thank you for those ).
I was just under the impression that Kepubs were not actually tanking into account the left and right length constraints specified in the dictionary itself.

It may have been the book I was reading, tho. Maybe something around the language metadata not being correct.

[Buhaj47]

I have the same issue with a Polish hyphenation dictionary right now. When I set left and right characters minimum limit to 3, KEBUB files somehow render 2 characters before a hyphen - should I increase the limit to 4?

I've seen mentions of symlink - what is that?

Wysłane przez Tapatalka

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by klover137006

And does someone have a link to a page that explains how the patterns are constructed – for instance, what ".aan5" means?

Yes. The number 5 is a "rank" of where hyphens can potentially go.

Higher/lower numbers let certain rules override other rules.

I recently explained Hyphenation Dictionaries in a simpler form a few months ago:

• 2021: "Feature Request: Make soft hyphen unicode character visible"

Note: Hyphenation Dictionaries work by patterns.

They list combinations of letters where hyphens can occur, then apply that across the entire text.

It's not like they list hundreds of thousands of every word known to man:

- hyphenate
- hyphenated
- hyphenates
- hyphenation
- hyphenations
- hyphenating

Instead, these hyphenation dictionaries list hundreds of patterns/rules like:

- "If a word ends in -ing OR -tion, you can stick a hyphen there."
- "If a word begins with anti- or semi-, you can stick a hyphen there."

Every language is going to have different patterns/rules, and people have already created these dictionaries for many of the main languages... even smaller ones like Welsh.

So even if you came up with some super cool new English word like:

- superduperliciousness

the device will auto-hyphenate correctly:

- su-per-duper-li-cious-ness

Side Note: If you needed all the extreme technical details, Hyphenation.org is the place to go.

Especially see the "Documentation" section:

• Frank Liang's thesis "Word Hy-phen-a-tion by Com-put-er" (1983)
  
  • This explains all the numbers + patterns + how they work.
• patgen is the tool used to generate all the patterns.
• In ~2008, these hyphenation dictionaries were expanded to support UTF-8.
  
  • All currently supported languages + their hyphenation dictionaries can be found at Hyphenation.org.
    
    • These dictionaries are the basis for most programs (Firefox, LibreOffice, Kobo, etc.).
  • They also list typographically proper Left/Right hyphenmin numbers for every supported language.
    
    • English = 2/3
      
    • Swedish = 2/2
      
    • Hindi = 1/1
      
    • [...]

Originally Posted by shalym

It should actually be "mem-ory". Words are supposed to break at the syllable break.

In American English, yes. Words for the most part follow their syllables.

In British English, many words hyphenate based on the root words.

In 2014, I posted a few examples of American vs. British Hyphenation differences:

• "hy-phen-ation" or "hyphena-tion"?
• "cryptog-raphy" or "crypto-graphy"?
• "ex-actly" or "ex-act-ly" or "exact-ly"?
• "ap-pearance" or "appear-ance"?
• "di-minish" or "dimin-ish"?

A great way to find valid hyphenation points is to search your word on M-W.com:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/memory

"mem-o-ry" is the syllables.

But you're correct with "mem-ory". In English typography, it's best to have >=3 letters after the final hyphen.

If you look up "cryptography", you can see the American is "cryp-tog-ra-phy".

Not all words follow the syllables though, and there are exceptions.

"therapist" is a funny example... "the-rapist". Seeing that in a book would make you look twice! If you look it up, the correct hyphenation is actually "ther-a-pist".

Side Note: For British English hyphenation, the Oxford Dictionary (now known as Lexico) used to have actual hyphenation points listed like Merriam-Webster... but maybe 5 or 6 years ago, they redid their website and removed it.

I was in the middle of researching detailed American vs. British differences when it happened. Really makes me wish I backed that stuff up when I had the chance.

Originally Posted by Simboubou

Ah, thank you for that ! That's interesting : I'm French, and while when speaking english I would definitely pronounce that "mem'ry", when reading my eyes are expecting hyphens based on a french "me-mo-ry".

A couple more examples like this I came across while reading were "alarm-ing", "usu-ally" or "Riv-iera". Do they all seem correct to you ?

According to syllables at M-W.com:

• alarm-ing
• usu-al-ly
• Riv-i-era

If we apply the "need to end with >=3 characters", the bad "-ly" hyphen disappears... so your "usu-ally" is correct.

Now let's say you wanted to hyphenate:

• alarm-ing-ly

same thing. The ending "-ly" is only 2 characters, so it shouldn't split there, so you'd get:

• alarm-ingly

Note: In French, 2/2 characters to the Left/Right is valid. See Hyphenation.org + my descriptions way above.

Originally Posted by Simboubou

It may have been the book I was reading, tho. Maybe something around the language metadata not being correct.

Most likely. The EPUB's metadata language + HTML's language must match the Hyphenation Dictionary on the device.

So an "en" dictionary only applies to English + a "de" dictionary would only apply to German, "fr" to French, etc., etc.

On Kindles, this hyphenation even goes down to the word-level. See jhowell's "Kindle hyphenation" post from 2021. I'm unsure on most other devices/apps.

Originally Posted by Buhaj47

I have the same issue with a Polish hyphenation dictionary right now. When I set left and right characters minimum limit to 3, KEBUB files somehow render 2 characters before a hyphen - should I increase the limit to 4?

For Polish hyphenation, 2/2 are the true Left/Right numbers you want.

Hmmm... but I'm not sure on Kobo's quirks. According to JSWolf's Post #14, KEPUB has an off-by-one bug... so you'd have to specify 3/3(???) in your dictionary.

JSWolf, has this bug been fixed? Has it been reported to Kobo? Does it still apply to the latest firmware?

Originally Posted by JSWolf

There is a better solution. Try my better hyphenation dictionary. I use it and so do a lot of other people.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=252405

Might want to also add Finnish.

I recently promoted Kobo's openness (with Hyphenation Dictionaries) in a Reddit post. (The original poster wanted to create a two-column bilingual book... turns out he's Finnish. When I went looking for Finnish support in Kobos, I couldn't find any info.)

[Jane Eyre]

What a bothering problem! I'm an Italian speaker. Though hyphenation in my language is relatively simple (according to Accademia della Crusca), there are a lot of rules and exceptions.
I saw that Kobo often does bad hyphenation.
For example, Italian words with double consonants should always get separated, so let's spell "ATTERRARE" (to land in english):

At-ter-ra-re.

So, if found at the bottom of the line, we should have:

At-
terrare.

Kobo doesn't do this correctly.
Wrong hyphenation happens though Kobo uses its default dictionary.

I personally don't like hyphenation very much. Since I was little I've found it tricky and esthetically ugly, not just on a digital display. In books and hand-writed texts either. About the alignment, I dislike justification, I hate space between words and I don't find it much readable. I always move to left.
If I enlarge margins just a bit and keep the text on the left, hyphenation goes at the minimum with fewer mistakes.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Jane Eyre

What a bothering problem! I'm an Italian speaker. Though hyphenation in my language is relatively simple (according to Accademia della Crusca), there are a lot of rules and exceptions.
I saw that Kobo often does bad hyphenation.
For example, Italian words with double consonants should always get separated, so let's spell "ATTERRARE" (to land in english):

At-ter-ra-re.

So, if found at the bottom of the line, we should have:

At-
terrare.

Kobo doesn't do this correctly.
Wrong hyphenation happens though Kobo uses its default dictionary.

I personally don't like hyphenation very much. Since I was little I've found it tricky and esthetically ugly, not just on a digital display. In books and hand-writed texts either. About the alignment, I dislike justification, I hate space between words and I don't find it much readable. I always move to left.
If I enlarge margins just a bit and keep the text on the left, hyphenation goes at the minimum with fewer mistakes.

I just disable hyphenation in the book css, as I also can't stand it and I read justified text, with a patch decreasing the spacing between words. Justification is also set in the book css, as setting it on Kobo would justify any centered text as well. On my Kobos justification is set to off.

[Jane Eyre]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

I just disable hyphenation in the book css

Really? How?

I saw that others here do with Kobo Touch Extended. I've never been able to use it.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Jane Eyre

Really? How?

I saw that others here do with Kobo Touch Extended. I've never been able to use it.

First, I convert from epub to epub, to bulk remove all the existing rules concerning hyphenation:
adobe-hyphenate, -webkit-hyphens, hyphens, -moz-hyphens, -epub-hyphens

After that, I bulk insert the following using Modify Epub:

body {
-epub-hyphens: none;
adobe-hyphenate: none;
-webkit-hyphens: none;
-moz-hyphens: none;
hyphens: none}

[Aleron Ives]

I know there are custom hyphenation dictionaries that are supposed to increase the frequency of hyphenation, since Kobo doesn't do it by default very often. Is it possible to go in the other direction and create an empty hyphenation dictionary, so that hyphenation will never be used without having to edit every book? Are there instructions anywhere for how to create hyphenation dictionaries in Kobo's format?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

I know there are custom hyphenation dictionaries that are supposed to increase the frequency of hyphenation, since Kobo doesn't do it by default very often. Is it possible to go in the other direction and create an empty hyphenation dictionary, so that hyphenation will never be used without having to edit every book? Are there instructions anywhere for how to create hyphenation dictionaries in Kobo's format?

There are some better hyphenation dictionaries. There is French, Hungarian, English, German, and Spanish. https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=252405

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Jane Eyre

What a bothering problem! I'm an Italian speaker. Though hyphenation in my language is relatively simple (according to Accademia della Crusca), there are a lot of rules and exceptions.
I saw that Kobo often does bad hyphenation.
For example, Italian words with double consonants should always get separated, so let's spell "ATTERRARE" (to land in english):

At-ter-ra-re.

So, if found at the bottom of the line, we should have:

At-
terrare.

Kobo doesn't do this correctly.
Wrong hyphenation happens though Kobo uses its default dictionary.

I personally don't like hyphenation very much. Since I was little I've found it tricky and esthetically ugly, not just on a digital display. In books and hand-writed texts either. About the alignment, I dislike justification, I hate space between words and I don't find it much readable. I always move to left.
If I enlarge margins just a bit and keep the text on the left, hyphenation goes at the minimum with fewer mistakes.

I'll see if I can find an Italian hyphenation dictionary. If I can, would you mind testing it?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

There are some better hyphenation dictionaries. There is French, Hungarian, English, German, and Spanish. https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=252405

The question was how to disable hyphenation by creating an empty dictionary, not how to add MORE hyphens, which is what the "better" dictionaries do.

[Jane Eyre]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

First, I convert from epub to epub, to bulk remove all the existing rules concerning hyphenation:
adobe-hyphenate, -webkit-hyphens, hyphens, -moz-hyphens, -epub-hyphens

After that, I bulk insert the following using Modify Epub:

body {
-epub-hyphens: none;
adobe-hyphenate: none;
-webkit-hyphens: none;
-moz-hyphens: none;
hyphens: none}

Geek! And, what if I prefer kepub instead of epub?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Jane Eyre

Geek! And, what if I prefer kepub instead of epub?

Same. You can edit the epub before converting to kepub/using the extended driver; the code still applies.

[Jane Eyre]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I'll see if I can find an Italian hyphenation dictionary. If I can, would you mind testing it?

Yes, of course!