Definition
Hyphenation
Hyphenation breaks long words across lines at syllable boundaries so justified text keeps even spacing. Justification without hyphenation is the main cause of ugly gaps in a printed page.
The two settings travel together: justification needs somewhere to absorb the slack, and hyphenation supplies it. Conventional limits are no more than two or three hyphenated lines in a row, never a hyphen on the last line of a paragraph, and never one across a page turn. Language matters — a hyphenation dictionary is per-language, so a Spanish passage hyphenated by English rules breaks in the wrong places.
Related tools & guides
See it handled in your own manuscript
Ceeryo sets your .docx as a book — justified and hyphenated text with widows, orphans and rivers controlled, drop caps, running heads — and shows you every spread before you pay anything.