Hyphenation is the process of breaking words between lines to smooth out the right edge of the text, called the rag. (For right-aligned text, the left edge is the rag.) For most people, hyphenation is something that your word processor does automatically—set it and forget it. But there are a few options worth considering.
First, do you even need hyphenation? Hyphenation doesn’t improve text legibility, so other things being equal, you should turn it off. Generally, hyphenation is necessary for justified text but not for left-aligned text, because left-aligned text will have an irregular rag no matter what.
Hyphenation is also less necessary for wider text blocks, because awkward line breaks are less likely. (Newspapers have to take hyphenation seriously because most newspaper text is set in narrow columns and justified.)
If you do use automatic hyphenation, take a moment to adjust the hyphenation options. The hyphenation in Word and WP is “dumb” in the sense that it simply looks at the end of each line and decides whether a hyphenated word will fit. It doesn’t consider what has gone before or after, e.g. whether this is the eighth line in a row with a hyphen. The hyphenation options in both programs let you control the hyphenation zone (smaller hyphenation zone = less hyphenation). Word also allows you to set the maximum number of consecutive hyphens.
True hyphenation enthusiasts can investigate the manual-hyphenation options in Word or WP, but for legal documents, manual hyphenation is overkill. You have better things to do.
LaTeX sets text beautifully using a line-breaking algorithm that takes a wealth of factors into account to make paragraphs look as good as possible.
See §7 here for more information:
http://nitens.org/taraborelli/latex
This is useful information for the four or five patent attorneys out there who remember LaTeX from their time as a PhD student in applied mathematics.
I disagree. Full justification looks better, but with full justification hyphenation becomes important. Thus manual, invisible hyphenation (cntrl-shift-hyphen in WP) works well because the hypens only appear as needed.
LaTeX is very niche these days but the fact remains; it’s a hugely serious typesetting engine. If you’re reading a website called typographyforlawyers.com then you might care enough to break out the heavy tools. I don’t think I’ve ever needed to put a mathematical function in any legal document but hey, it might happen?
Another point in its favour is just how much more developed support for LaTeX is on Linux compared to WP or Word. Again that’s niche but important if that’s what you’re using.
I am a graphic designer working at a law firm. One of our attorneys put together a bulletin that was heavily hyphenated. I commented to him that perhaps he should turn off the hyphenation option, as, in my opinion, there was just too much of it, making it much harder to read. He argued that heavy hyphenation in legal doucments was acceptable…that the rules were different from design rules. True or false?
I can’t recommend picking a fight with your employer about his hyphenation preferences. That said, one of the principles of this site is that legal typography does not have special typographic rules. The rules of good typography are the same for any document. But many lawyers have not been exposed to these rules (through no fault of their own) so what they describe as “rules” are better said to be “habits”.
Definitely look at LaTeX. I use it now for correspondence; and I’m planning on using it for all other documents that don’t require 1) a table of authorities, 2) group editing, or 3) .doc submission to a Judge’s chambers.
There needs to be some sort of discussion about the \emph{real} typetting engine of our time: \LaTeX.
I’m skeptical that your plan will survive contact with the first law firm that employs you.