No soft hyphen???

[spitfire31]

Hi,

First, I'm basically very happy with my decision to switch to Nisus Writer Pro.

With that caveat out of the way, I am frankly shocked to realize that there's apparently no way to insert a soft hyphen character. Whatever happened to good ol' Cmd+-?

This is not good enough, guys. Please fix this omission ASAP!

Best regards,

Joachim

[ninjagame]

Joachim,

This topic has been discussed in this forum repeatedly; you might want to check on the following references.

http://nisus.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=3393
http://nisus.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=2460
http://nisus.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=3118
http://nisus.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=3093

Basically, the situation is that Nisus relies on Apple's text engine which "knows" English hyphenation patterns only. So, from Nisus's point of view the problem lies with Apple's text engine not being "international" enough.
For myself I've solved the problem by installing a macro Martin wrote:

$character = Text.newWithCodepoint(0x00AD)
Type Text $character

Just install it as described in the "Nisus Pro Macro" section: http://nisus.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2097
I've attached a key command to it (Cmd+-, as you suggested) and haven't had any problems correcting German hyphenation ever since.

Regards,

ninjagame

[spitfire31]

Ninjagame,

Thank you very much for your speedy reply!

I entered the macro as described and it works – as a regular hypen.

But not quite as what I mean by soft hyphen – i. e. a character that shows up only when it's needed because the entire word being hyphenated would otherwise be moved to the next line.

I tested by inserting the 'soft hyphen' in the Swedish word 'munnen' - 'the mouth' - between the two n:s, and it shows up just like a normal hyphen: mun-nen, even when the word is in the middle of a line.

What I was hoping for is a hyphen would act like an invisible character when it's not needed and, after a re-edit, say, would work as a regular, visible hyphen if the entire word would otherwise be moved down to the beginning of the next line. This is how it works in, er… Word and it's very handy when you edit a lot. Other-wise, you will have a num-ber of words look-ing like this and they have to be edited manually.

Did I misunderstand anything? I should add that I never use automatic hyphenation but it's my habit since the Word days to just hit Cmd+- and then the soft hyphen won't show unless it's needed.

Thanks again for the effort!

Best regards,

Joachim

EDIT: On going through the threads you referred me to, I noticed one caveat, which explains my problem described above: apparently the macro only works with Leopard. For various reasons, I still use 10.4.11 which is a very good OS on my MB Pro – stable and no probs with permissions like 10.5.8 on my other partition. But apparently this 'hack' doesn't work with Tiger – even Word rtf documents that I open in NW Pro lose the soft part of SHYs.

[ninjagame]

Joachim,

er , that's what I forgot to mention: The macro works only with OS 10.5.x and higher but with 10.5.x it's really a soft hyphen as you want it.

Sorry.

ninjagame

[Elbrecht]

Hi Joachim -

SHY works with Snow / Leopard alike - sorry, no Tiger running anymore with me... You can download a test file:

http://elbrecht.com/long_di_stant_ru_nner.rtf.zip

Just open the RTF and ZOOM IN/OUT with the Font Size - works for me with all my fonts - old and new ones.
You seem to need at least Leopard and Nisus Writer Pro 1.3 - not sure about Express.
SHY seems to overwrite dictionary hyphenation - BTW.

Gruß HE

[spitfire31]

Thank you, ninjagame and Elbrecht, for your help!

It's now clear to me that if I want to trade SHYs against my cosy Tiger environment, that's what I have to do.

I'll check it out tomorrow.

Thanks again!

Best,

Joachim

[greenmorpher]

I'm getting the break but no hyphen appearing.

OS X.6.1

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
Publisher, Editor, Business Writer
The Worsley Press

FREE Bonus book offer. Get "How to make great ads for (sm)all business" FREE when you buy "Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes?" or "How to Start and Produce a Magazine or Newsletter". Amazon or www.worsleypress.com

[Elbrecht]

Hi Geoff -

how is this? - Here is mine:

http://www.elbrecht.com/LucidaGrande77pt.png
http://www.elbrecht.com/LucidaGrande78pt.png

Works with any font [with SHY included] for me :
Leopard / Snow Leopard & Nisus Writer 1.3 / 1.4

HE

[ninjagame]

I'm getting the break but no hyphen appearing.

OS X.6.1

Cheers, Geoff

Geoff,

Now wait...
...does that mean that the macro

$character = Text.newWithCodepoint(0x00AD)
Type Text $character

doesn't work with OS 10.6.x anymore?This would really make me worry since I'm planning to upgrade to OS 10.6.x soon...

ninjagame

[Elbrecht]

Hi -

just to get things straight - I enter my SHY directly via customized keyboard; no macro involved with me...

HE

[greenmorpher]

I made a point of mentioning X.6.1. This OS has some type problems -- so it may not work with .1 but it might work with X.6.2. (I'm stuck on X.6.1 for the nonce because X.6.2 breaks two of my favorite programs -- Eudora [although I believe now that it can be saved by NOT specifying the Eudora sounds for alerts] and Personal Organizer 4.5 from Chronosnet. X.6.2 apparently breaks the way PO links with its database. And Chronos is still fiddling around with its ugly SOHO Organizer, which incredibly won't import CSV or Tab Separated text files [Address Book will~!]; they want those stupid calling card files instead. Crazy.)

Note that a true soft hyphen not only breaks the word where you want it to, but introduces the hyphen symbol itself. If you do something that reflows the text, that soft hyphen automatically disappears as does any hyphen introduced automatically.

A soft hyphen workaround where you make the break but then type in the hyphen isn't really a soft hyphen at all because when you reflow, the hyphen is still there.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
Publisher, Editor, Business Writer
The Worsley Press

FREE Bonus book offer. Get "How to make great ads for (sm)all business" FREE when you buy "Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes?" or "How to Start and Produce a Magazine or Newsletter". Amazon or http://www.worsleypress.com

[Elbrecht]

Hi Geoff -

I had no problems with 10.6.1 at all and SHY just behaves the way you describe it.
I really can't see why SHY is still a problem for you. Soft hyphen landed - point.

HE

[phspaelti]

I have pretty much the same problem as Geoff. I get a break but no visible hyphen, when I insert U+00AD.
However the file that Elbrecht posted works fine. And if I add more soft-hyphens to that file they work like his. So I can't quite figure what is going on.

Philip

[phspaelti]

I figured it out.
In order to make the soft hyphen visible one needs to choose "Allow Hyphenation" from the "View" menu. If "Allow Hyphenation" is unchecked the soft-hyphen allows breaking of words, but itself stays invisible.

Philip

[Elbrecht]

Hi Philip -

sorry, but I still hold this to be self-evident - no soft hyphenation without hyphenation!

Enjoy SHYness
HE