[Tex/LaTex] When I prevent hyphenation using an \mbox, the box gets pushed into the right margin

boxeshyphenationline-breaking

I've used \mbox to prevent LaTeX from breaking certain long words into hyphenated pairs. Now I have a new problem: the unbroken words are extending into the right margin. Here's some minimal sample code that reproduces my problem:

\documentclass[12pt,draft,letterpaper]{report}
\setlength{\textwidth}{5.8in}

\begin{document}
  We summarize our method in algorithm 1. The functions \mbox{``Update''}
  and \mbox{``BatchUpdate''} implement single and multi-constraint updates
  as described above, using interpolated solving to solve for no more than
  $D_{max}$ nodes at a time. The \mbox{``GetUpstreamGPSes($b$, $n$)''}
  function crawls up the tree from node $b$, and returns the first $n$ GPS
  edges along that path.
\end{document}

When I compile this with pdflatex, the "BatchUpdate" and "GetUpstreamGPSes(b, n)" function names get pushed into to right margin. I wanted them to get moved to the next line.

How can I prevent particular words from being broken across lines, while preventing them from extending into the right margin?

Best Answer

Try \sloppy (How can I make my text never go over the right margin by always hyphenating or breaking on word-boundaries?).

I found that in the Related Links to your question. It worked for me with your text.

To fix just a part of the document:

surround the offending paragraph with \begin{sloppypar} and \end{sloppypar} commands. Then LaTeX will not break words up but rather will allow more spacing between words in the given paragraph.

(from http://ece.uprm.edu/~caceros/latex/introduction.pdf)

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Hyphenation when using \verb command

I can't recommend hyphenating a file name, because this introduces an ambiguity: does the hyphen belong to the name or not?

You may consider using the \path command provided by the url package, by supplementing it with code allowing it to break before capital letters, for instance:

\documentclass[a4paper,10pt]{article}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage[left=2cm, right=2.2cm,height=25cm]{geometry}
\usepackage{url,etoolbox}
\appto\UrlSpecials{%
  \do\F{\penalty0 \mathchar`\F }%
  \do\L{\penalty0 \mathchar`\L }%
  \do\N{\penalty0 \mathchar`\N }%
}
\begin{document}
Here is some TeX example of text  that looks nice, but when
I Want to type some text like  \path{myDataFileLongName.csv} using the
verb command, there is no hyphenation nor like break adequately, so the
text inside the verb command get out of the page margins.

\end{document}

I didn't add all capital letters, do it if you want, or judge from your real cases what's the real need.

enter image description here

The \path command (and also \url) works by cleverly exploiting TeX's math mode features. It would be too long to describe completely how it works; for this application, we can make use of the \UrlSpecials list macro; the characters contained in the list are made (locally) math active and so their appearance triggers substitution with the prescribed replacement text.

With the proposed code, F will become \penalty0 \mathchar`\F (saying \penalty0 F would enter an infinite loop, but \mathchar`\F is safe): the penalty will allow a line break before the F.

If you don't want to globally modify the \path command, you can add to the \UrlSpecials list only locally inside the working of a new command.

\documentclass[a4paper,10pt]{article}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage[left=2cm, right=2.2cm,height=25cm]{geometry}
\usepackage{url,etoolbox}

\let\breaktt\path
\patchcmd{\breaktt}
  {\begingroup}
  {\begingroup\apptourlspecials}
  {}{}
\newcommand{\apptourlspecials}{%
  \appto\UrlSpecials{%
    % add to this list
    \do\F{\penalty0 \mathchar`\F }%
    \do\L{\penalty0 \mathchar`\L }%
    \do\N{\penalty0 \mathchar`\N }%
  }%
}
\begin{document}
Here is some TeX example of text  that looks nice, but when
I Want to type some text like  \breaktt{myDataFileLongName.csv} using the
verb command, there is no hyphenation nor like break adequately, so the
text inside the verb command get out of the page margins.

\end{document}

The command \path expands to \leavevmode\begingroup\urlstyle{tt}\Url, so we define \breaktt to do the same but we also add something just after \begingroup, precisely the addition to the list \UrlSpecials we need. In this way \path and \url will behave as before.

[Tex/LaTex] How to prevent words from running into the right margin

The German LaTeX Wikibook contains a chapter about hyphenation -- here's the link.

babel Package

First of all make sure that you use the babel package. It loads hyphenation rules for the language you use.

hyphsubst Package

If you write in German maybe the hyphsubst package is a good option.

Manually Help LaTeX with the Hyphenation (Globally)

As stated here or here or here for example you can add specific hyphenation rules in the preamble of your document:

% needs babel package
\hyphenation{cryp-to-graphy lalala-la lolo-lolo-lulu}

Manually Help LaTeX with the Hyphenation (Locally)

I would recommend this as the last step when you finished your document. Then you can manually help LaTeX.

The command \overfullrule=2pt in the preamble will show you where LaTeX has a problem with hyphenation:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[ngerman]{babel}

% showframe to show the layout frames... :)
\usepackage[textwidth=50mm,showframe]{geometry}

% Show overfull boxes and lines (TeX primitive)
\overfullrule=2pt

\begin{document}

Lalalalalalala lalalalala lalalalala lalalalala

\end{document}

Here's a list of manual options:

\- Hyphenation a word only here and nowhere else (all other hyphenation rules are not valid anymore).
"- Hyphenation a word also here (the other hyphenation rules are still valid).
"= This produces a dash. Hyphenation is allowed here and the other hyphenation rules are still valid. Normally if a word contains a dash the dash is the only place where a hyphenation can occur.
"~ This produces a dash where no hyphenation is allowed.
"" Here a hyphenation can occur but no automatic hyphenation dash will be produced by LaTeX.

These commands work if you use ngerman option for babel. I do not know how to make them work if you use other languages. Can somebody help me on this?

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[ngerman]{babel}

% showframe to show the layout frames... :)
\usepackage[textwidth=50mm,showframe]{geometry}

% Show overfull boxes and lines (TeX primitive)
\overfullrule=2pt

\begin{document}

Lalalalalalala lalalalala lal"-lalala lalalalala

\end{document}

microtype Package

Stolen from the comments (@Henri Menke)!

The microtype package also improves hyphenation. The following cite is taken from the package manual:

Micro-typography is the art of enhancing the appearance and readability of a document while exhibiting a minimum degree of visual obtrusion. It is concerned with what happens between or at the margins of characters, words or lines. Whereas the macro-typographical aspects of a document (i.e., its layout) are clearly visible even to the untrained eye, micro-typographical refinements should ideally not even be recognisable. That is, you may think that a document looks beautiful, but you might not be able to tell exactly why: good micro-typographic practice tries to reduce all potential irritations that might disturb a reader.