Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Turning Off Paragraph Hyphenation.

Turning Off Paragraph Hyphenation

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated May 16, 2025)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021

The hyphenation tool provided with Word can be very handy when creating a document. There may be some paragraphs, however, in which you don't want Word to hyphenate words. You can turn off hyphenation for selected paragraphs by following these steps:

Make sure the insertion point is located in the paragraph you don't want to hyphenate. (If you want to turn off hyphenation for several paragraphs, simply select all those paragraphs.)
Display the Home tab of the ribbon.
Click the small icon at the bottom-right of the Paragraph group. Word displays the Paragraph dialog box.
Make sure the Line and Page Breaks tab is selected. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Line and Page Breaks tab of the Paragraph dialog box.

Ensure the Don't Hyphenate check box is selected.
Click on OK.

Now when you choose to do an automatic hyphenation, all the paragraphs formatted for no hyphenation are skipped, and only those paragraphs that are not formatted that way are hyphenated. If you use styles, of course you can make this even easier by creating a paragraph style that has the hyphenation setting turned on or off according to your needs. Then, any paragraph to which you apply the style will remain unhyphenated.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (11364) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Turning Off Paragraph Hyphenation.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Understanding Page Border Art

Add some artwork around the border of your printed page, and you may not know where that artwork comes from. You may also ...

Discover More

Creating Scenarios

Excel allows you to create different scenarios for the data in your worksheet. These can be saved and managed using the ...

Discover More

How Word Applies Styles

Styles are a great boon for applying styles in a powerfully consistent manner. How Word applies styles, however, depends ...

Discover More

Create Custom Apps with VBA! Discover how to extend the capabilities of Office 365 applications with VBA programming. Written in clear terms and understandable language, the book includes systematic tutorials and contains both intermediate and advanced content for experienced VB developers. Designed to be comprehensive, the book addresses not just one Office application, but the entire Office suite. Check out Mastering VBA for Microsoft Office 365 today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Making All Lines in a Paragraph the Same Height

If the line spacing in a paragraph appears uneven it may result of the combination of a larger character or object pasted ...

Discover More

Hanging Indents in Wrapped Text

If you use hanging indents for some of your paragraphs, you may wonder why they don't look right when they wrap on the ...

Discover More

Spacing Before and After Lists

When formatting a document that uses lists, you may want to adjust the space that appears just before and just after the ...

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is nine minus 4?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu interface.