Word wrap and word division

The difference mentioned in the previous section between print and web text editing traditions is not merely confined to character selection. Text justification may also be an issue.

Texts for print media such as letters, books, magazines and newspapers are usually fully justified (left and right). Web media, in contrast, tend to be left-justified because they are viewed at different page widths on different screens, and large horizontal gaps may appear between words if full justification is used and the text is viewed in a narrow window. This problem can be solved in word processing documents if the right dictionaries are installed (if not, words may be divided in the wrong place) and automatic word division is activated. The program will then split long words at the end of lines to reduce the appearance of long spaces between words when total justification is used.

Word wrap is the feature that automatically carries down any word that does not fit at the end of a line. Although it is a fundamental feature of word processors, it can lead to problems when items that should be on the same line are split over two lines. To avoid this, use non-breaking spaces, for instance between an honorific and the following name, and non-breaking hyphens, for instance as a separator between numbers.

In Microsoft Word the following key combinations may be used to insert these characters:Control+Shift+Space for a non-breaking space; Control+Shift+Hyphen for a non-breaking hyphen.

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