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How to correct the hyphenation in my paper that is entirely wrong? For example, in my paper, there are wrong hyphenations like result-s, s-mall, s-pace, etc. How can I fix this problem. I don't use any package yet.

enter image description here

Sample Code:

\usepackage[english]{babel}

An alternative way is to add:

\righthyphenmin=3
John Smith
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    Hi John, welcome to TeX.sx! Could you edit your question to include a small example document that shows the behaviour you describe? – Jake Aug 20 '12 at 14:04
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    use the babel package to load hyphenation patterns – Thorsten Aug 20 '12 at 14:09
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    As Thorsten said, load \usepackage[english]{babel} – Sigur Aug 20 '12 at 14:10
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    Does TeX really break s-pace? – topskip Aug 20 '12 at 14:15
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    As an addition to @Sigur's comment: Some people recommend using either british or american, just to be really clear. Usually, english equals american, cf. babel: english, american, USenglish – doncherry Aug 20 '12 at 14:16
  • @sigur, Thanks. It works pretty fine. Mytex really break s-pace. I don't know why these hyphenations are wrong. – John Smith Aug 20 '12 at 14:19
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    @JohnSmith: Good to hear that Thorsten's/Sigur's suggestion works for you. Would you mind posting an example document nonetheless? – Jake Aug 20 '12 at 14:21
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    @PatrickGundlach -- The default settings for TeX's hyphenation of English-language words are \righthyphenmin=3 and \lefthyphenmin=2. Hence, TeX will never hyphenate s-mall, result-s, or s-pace -- unless one or more of the hyphenation-related defaults have been reset explicitly. – Mico Aug 20 '12 at 14:23
  • @Jake, I really want to upload an illustrative example, but I was told that new users aren't allowed to post images. Earn more than 10 reputation to post images. – John Smith Aug 20 '12 at 14:30
  • @JohnSmith: There you go, I upvoted your question in anticipation of your MWE :) – doncherry Aug 20 '12 at 14:31
  • @Mico, great! That might be the problem in essence. Thanks! – John Smith Aug 20 '12 at 14:31
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    @JohnSmith: Could you also include the code for a minimal example document that leads to that output? – Jake Aug 20 '12 at 14:33
  • @Mico that's what I thought. - I wonder how the image in the question was created. – topskip Aug 20 '12 at 14:37
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    As Mico said the setting \righthypenmin looks to have been set to 0. If it is set that way in your latex format something went badly wrong when it was installed. The other alternative is that your tex file resets it. Without sample code impossible to say which of these is the case. – David Carlisle Aug 20 '12 at 14:40
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    Even without loading english/babel (and setting the ..hyphenmin to 0), TeX would never hyphenate s-mall. There must be something very fishy here. – topskip Aug 20 '12 at 14:43

1 Answers1

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For the words small, space, and results to get hyphenated as s-mall, s-pace, and result-s, somebody or something must have reset two of TeX's fundamental hyphenation-related parameters, viz., \lefthyphenmin and \righthyphenmin. For an English-language setting, the default values of these parameters are

\lefthyphenmin=2

and 

\righthyphenmin=3

Something in your document must have managed to set both parameters to 1 (or possibly 0). Be sure to either delete the commands that modify these two parameters or insert the two instructions above in your document (to reset the parameter values to their respective default values).

Mico
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