LaTeX hyphens pattern file for medical terminology

Question

This might be slightly off topic since my main goal is to hyphenate strings in Java, but please bare with me.

So far I've only looked at TeXHyphenator-J and Hyphenation libraries and both of them use LaTeX hyphenation patterns.

I would like to hyphenate strings for US English, ideally taking into account medical terms which tend to be lengthy.

I've used multiple US patterns found on CTAN but notice the hypenation isn't quite correct. For example, inputting a string like

Deoxyribonucleic acid, sternocleidomastoid, dicotiledoneas,Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

I've got results like these:

De-oxyri-bonu-cle-ic acid, ster-n-oclei-do-mas-toid, di-cotile-doneas,P-neu-monoul-tra-mi-cro-scop-ic-sil-i-co-vol-canoco-nio-sis

Deoxy-ri-bo-nucleic a-ci-d, s-tern-oclei-do-mas-to-i-d, di-co-ti-le-do-ne-as,P-neu-mo-noul-tra-mi-cros-co-pic-si-li-co-vol-ca-no-co-nio-sis

Are there any LaTeX patterns for hyphenating medical terms in (US)English ? If so, where can I find them ?

If not, is it possible to create such a pattern ? Where would I start ?

I think that making a file with hyphenation exceptions is better. I don't think there is anything like this, at the moment. — egreg, Feb 21 '14 at 15:41
see the question Where can I find a list of English hyphenation exceptions? for information on how to add to the extant list of exceptions. — barbara beeton, Feb 21 '14 at 22:01
@egreg that's a nice little workaround, thanks for the suggestion — George Profenza, Feb 22 '14 at 13:22

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 22 '14 at 12:04

2

If you really want to correctly hyphenate the medical idiom it sounds like preparing a new language. TeX uses Liang's algorithm. Accordingly the hyphenation patterns are made for it. The TeX distributions contain a program patgen to generate the hyphenation pattern from a (large) list of correctly hyphenated words.

answered Feb 22 '14 at 12:04

Gerd Neugebauer

716

Great, I'll look into patgen and see if I can generate a pattern. Thanks(+1) – George Profenza Feb 22 '14 at 13:23

LaTeX hyphens pattern file for medical terminology

1 Answers1