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Glossary

What is a soft hyphen?

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A soft hyphen (U+00AD) is an invisible character that marks where a word may be split; it only shows as a hyphen when the line actually breaks there. In a PDF, a hyphen at the end of a line can be a soft hyphen or a real one.

Why it matters when you convert a PDF to EPUB

A converter must rejoin words that were split at the end of a PDF line ("conver- sion" becomes "conversion") without merging real hyphenated compounds. EpubCC rejoins a word when the PDF marks the hyphen as a line break, or when the next line starts in lowercase, and lets the e-reader hyphenate the EPUB again for its own line length.

How EpubCC handles it: the stylesheet turns on automatic hyphenation for paragraphs (hyphens: auto) and turns it off for headings, so the reading app hyphenates for its own line length, using the language declared in dc:language.

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FAQ

What is a soft hyphen?

A soft hyphen (U+00AD) is an invisible character that marks where a word may be split; it only shows as a hyphen when the line actually breaks there. In a PDF, a hyphen at the end of a line can be a soft hyphen or a real one.