[Tex/LaTex] How to configure (tweak) babel’s hyphenation

babelhyphenation

I found out that I can tweak hyphenation settings by writing:

\righthyphenmin=6
\lefthyphenmin=6
\usepackage{hyphenat}

I like this, because it hyphenates only really long words, leaving all others intact. But when I do \usepackage[ngerman]{babel}, hyphenation goes back to default settings.

I understand that when I load babel, it starts handling all the hyphenation and my settings mentioned above are not used anymore. How can I have a similar configuration while using babel? Maybe I can use some option, so that it will not change hyphenation settings?

(Side note: Normally I wouldn't use babel, but I need translated titles and captions for figures and lists.)

Best Answer

The babel documention states:

The macro \<lang>hyphenmins is used to store the values of the \lefthyphenmin and \righthyphenmin. Redefine this macro to set your own values, with two numbers corresponding to these two parameters.

So that would be:

\renewcommand\ngermanhyphenmins{66}

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to add global hyphenation rules

A simple workround would be to have a personal custom style file that includes, for example,

\usepackage{hyphenat}
\hyphenation{he-lio-trope opos-sum}

that you can include as desired. Just put it on the local texmf tree in an appropriate place. With these two lines in myhyph.sty:

\documentclass[british]{article}
\usepackage[british]{babel}
\usepackage{myhyph}
\tracingparagraphs=1
\begin{document}
\pagenumbering{arabic}
\selectlanguage{british}
\allowhyphens

Ms Miller-\allowbreak Smith ba\-la\-clava {\nobreak areca} 
electromagnetic\hyp{}endioscopy heliotrope opossum.

\end{document}

An included file should work as well.

[Tex/LaTex] LaTeX Hyphenation

The declaration \usepackage[english]{babel} loads hyphenation patterns for American English. If British English hyphenation patterns are preferred, then

\usepackage[british]{babel}

is the right choice. Instead of british one can also say UKenglish.

Upgrading to MiKTeX 2.9 is recommended, as the 2.5 version enables only a few languages (and British English is not among them); it's possible to enable other languages with MiKTeX's control panel also in 2.5, but the 2.9 version is more up-to-date and highly recommendable.

You can see whether British English hyphenation patterns are not preloaded if the

\usepackage[british]{babel}

declaration produces the following message in the .log file:

Package babel Warning: No hyphenation patterns were loaded for
(babel)                the language `British'
(babel)                I will use the patterns loaded for \language=0 instead.

In this case you have to go to the MiKTeX control panel to enable the language.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to add global hyphenation rules

[Tex/LaTex] LaTeX Hyphenation

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