Remove Hyphens

The "Remove Hyphens" tool is designed to eliminate hyphenation marks found in the document, preserving the correct text formatting and reconstructing split words. This function integrates with the "Hyphens" group in the Character Customization section, accessible from the Tools > Characters menu, where the characters recognized as hyphenation marks are defined.

The Remove Hyphens window includes the following fields:

1. List of criteria for hyphen removal: These criteria determine the behavior of the function and can be enabled or disabled as needed. They include:

- Selected Document: Removes hyphens only in the selected part of the document.

- Forward Direction: If enabled, removes hyphens from the cursor to the end of the document; if disabled, removes them from the cursor to the beginning. This setting has no effect if "Selected Document" is enabled.

- Only at End of Line: If enabled, removes only hyphens that appear at the end of a line; if disabled, also removes hyphens added elsewhere in the text.

- Join Entire Line: If enabled, reconstructs not only the word split by the hyphen but also the entire line that contains it; if disabled, joins only the split word.

- Join Only if in Dictionaries: Removes the hyphen and reconstructs the word only if it is present in one of the program's active dictionaries. To use this criterion, at least one dictionary must be present and active.

Hyphens can serve several purposes, such as:

- Hyphenating words at the end of a line.

- Connecting two words or elements of a compound word.

- Opening or closing parenthetical elements or direct speech.

The Unicode character set includes different types of hyphens specifically for these purposes. However, writers do not always use the correct character for each context.

Remove Hyphens, when properly configured, removes only hyphenation marks without altering hyphens used for other purposes, even if they share the same Unicode code.

For an optimal configuration:

- Always enable the Join Only if in Dictionaries criterion to ensure accurate and safe removal.

- Make sure that only the correct Unicode codes identifying hyphenation marks are listed in the Hyphens group under Character Customization. The characters configured with the program's default installation are already correct.