[OS X TeX] Hyphenation

[Thomas Schröder]

Am 27.03.2005 um 12:59 schrieb Hans van Maanen:

> Hi all --
>
> In the Dutch language macro dutch.dtx, we can use  "-  to hyphenate a 
> word while still enabling the rest of the word to be hyphenated, so 
> that common Dutch words like diphosphate-phosphohydrolase do not 
> result in underfull boxes.
>
> I would like to use this as standard behaviour, so that every  -  in 
> my text will be understood as  "- and has full hyphenation. I'm sure 
> it's just a \renewcommand somewhere, but I don't know how to do this.

In the German version "= is used for the same purpose. Therefore, I 
defined the following 2 commands in my preamble:

\def\BindeStrich{"=}
\let–=\BindeStrich

("Bindestrich" means "hyphen" in German by the way :-)

Anyways, the "-" above in the second line is not a regular "-" but a 
"–" which you get by typing "Alt-Minus" or "Alt--", at least on a 
German keyboard. This alternate hyphen character looks very much like 
the usual hyphen character which makes the source code much more 
readable since in German we use lots and lots and lots of words that 
are put together by hyphens. To make this work, just type "Alt--" 
instead of plain "-" or replace all hyphens by "Alt--". This would also 
eliminate problems in math environments or elsewhere, where the real 
minus sign or the normal hyphen must be used. There's a gotcha to this 
trick, though: it only works with the Mac or Unicode keyboard layouts, 
so, you'll lose some degree of compatibility when exchanging files with 
people who do not use a Mac or Unicode. But then,  you could always 
replace all "-"'s by "–"'s :-)

For your needs, you could modify the above to something like

\def\Thingy{"-}
\let–=\Thingy

And finally you'd have to load the Mac keyboard layout by typing

\usepackage[applemac]{inputenc}

in the preamble.

HTH, Thomas


     Ciao, Thomas

--
Thomas Schröder +++ hydrochlorix at gmx.net
--------------------- Info ---------------------
Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
           & FAQ: http://latex.yauh.de/faq/
TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
List Post: <mailto:MacOSX-TeX at email.esm.psu.edu>