[Greg Pavlicek]

Word currently will 'break' text to the next line on a space or a hyphen.
Can this list of characters be added to? We have a need to break large
multi-chemical names where the text contains a /, and we would like Word to
also break text on that /, just like it would if we entered
"first-second-third-fourth" except that we are working with
"first/second/third/fourth". Thanks !!!

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Use the No-Width Optional Break from the Special Characters tab of Insert |
Symbol. Note that it has a rather strange appearance if you have nonprinting
characters displayed.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Greg Pavlicek" gndpav (at) san (dot) rr (dot) comercial wrote in message
...
Word currently will 'break' text to the next line on a space or a hyphen.
Can this list of characters be added to? We have a need to break large
multi-chemical names where the text contains a /, and we would like Word
to
also break text on that /, just like it would if we entered
"first-second-third-fourth" except that we are working with
"first/second/third/fourth". Thanks !!!

[Klaus Linke]

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:
Use the No-Width Optional Break from the Special Characters tab of Insert
| Symbol. Note that it has a rather strange appearance if you have
nonprinting characters displayed.

Also note that both Word 2003 and 2007 don't actually insert a no-width
optional break (or "zero width space" as everybody but MS calls it: U+200B),
but a zero width non-joiner (U+200C).

http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode4.0.0/ch15.pdf
"The U+200B "zero width space" indicates a word boundary, except that it has
no width.
[...] The zero-width spaces are not to be confused with zero-width joiner
characters. U+200C "zero width non-joiner" and U+200D "zero width joiner"
have no effect on word boundaries"
The latter two "provide a way to influence joining and ligature glyph
selection".

Microsoft's naming and usage seem wrong to me. I think I bugged it in the
Wd2007 Beta, but it wasn't fixed.
The only change that was made is that both characters now look the same.
Formerly, U+200C had a different look, with non-printing characters
displayed. At least that was the case in Word 2000...

Klaus

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I remembered that Word doesn't insert the actual "zero width space," but I
can never remember the Unicode numbers for these things, much less the
rationale of them. I figured you'd come along behind me and clean up the
mess. g But now that I read the distinction, I'm wondering, in the case of
a URL, wouldn't you want the space NOT to be considered a word
boundary--that is, the entire URL is a single word?

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Klaus Linke" wrote in message
...
"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:
Use the No-Width Optional Break from the Special Characters tab of Insert
| Symbol. Note that it has a rather strange appearance if you have
nonprinting characters displayed.

Also note that both Word 2003 and 2007 don't actually insert a no-width
optional break (or "zero width space" as everybody but MS calls it:
U+200B), but a zero width non-joiner (U+200C).

http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode4.0.0/ch15.pdf
"The U+200B "zero width space" indicates a word boundary, except that it
has no width.
[...] The zero-width spaces are not to be confused with zero-width joiner
characters. U+200C "zero width non-joiner" and U+200D "zero width joiner"
have no effect on word boundaries"
The latter two "provide a way to influence joining and ligature glyph
selection".

Microsoft's naming and usage seem wrong to me. I think I bugged it in the
Wd2007 Beta, but it wasn't fixed.
The only change that was made is that both characters now look the same.
Formerly, U+200C had a different look, with non-printing characters
displayed. At least that was the case in Word 2000...

Klaus

[Klaus Linke]

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:
I remembered that Word doesn't insert the actual "zero width space," but I
can never remember the Unicode numbers for these things, much less the
rationale of them. I figured you'd come along behind me and clean up the
mess. g

There wasn't anything wrong with what you wrote.

I'm no expert, just trying to guess how things should be from the Unicode
documentation I quoted :-)

But now that I read the distinction, I'm wondering, in the case of a URL,
wouldn't you want the space NOT to be considered a word boundary--that is,
the entire URL is a single word?

From what I understand, a word boundary (in the Unicode Standard) is pretty
much by definition a place where you can have a line break.
It is something notoriously ambiguous though. Even inside Word, for example,
VBA has a one idea of what a "word" is, "Tools Word count" has another
(arriving at a different word count for the same text).

Klaus

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Well, Word is quite happy to break a line at the "No Width Optional Break,"
so it works for me (though I rarely use it). And I have always wondered
whether the break would make the URL nonclickable (if it were clickable);
what you quoted suggested to me that it would not (in the same mysterious
way that wrapped URLs in these NG posts can still be clickable). Obviously,
I haven't wondered enough to bother to test it. g

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Klaus Linke" wrote in message
...
"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:
I remembered that Word doesn't insert the actual "zero width space," but I
can never remember the Unicode numbers for these things, much less the
rationale of them. I figured you'd come along behind me and clean up the
mess. g

There wasn't anything wrong with what you wrote.

I'm no expert, just trying to guess how things should be from the Unicode
documentation I quoted :-)

But now that I read the distinction, I'm wondering, in the case of a URL,
wouldn't you want the space NOT to be considered a word boundary--that
is, the entire URL is a single word?

From what I understand, a word boundary (in the Unicode Standard) is
pretty much by definition a place where you can have a line break.
It is something notoriously ambiguous though. Even inside Word, for
example, VBA has a one idea of what a "word" is, "Tools Word count" has
another (arriving at a different word count for the same text).

Klaus