document hyphenation

1 files changed, 24 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/mandoc_char.7 b/mandoc_char.7
index 2c626f48..2d478b05 100644
--- a/mandoc_char.7
+++ b/mandoc_char.7
@@ -62,6 +62,30 @@ blue-eyed
 lorry-driver
 .Ed
 .Pp
+If a word on a text input line contains a hyphen, a formatter may decide
+to insert an output line break after the hyphen if that helps filling
+the current output line, but the whole word would overflow the line.
+If it is important that the word is not broken across lines in this
+way, a zero-width space
+.Pq Sq \e&
+can be inserted before or after the hyphen.
+While
+.Xr mandoc 1
+never breaks the output line after hyphens adjacent to a zero-width
+space, after any of the other dash- or hyphen-like characters
+represented by escape sequences, or after hyphens inside words in
+macro arguments, other software may not respect these rules and may
+break the line even in such cases.
+.Pp
+Some
+.Xr roff 7
+implementations contains dictionaries allowing to break the line
+at syllable boundaries even inside words that contain no hyphens.
+Such automatic hyphenation is not supported by
+.Xr mandoc 1 ,
+which only breaks the line at whitespace, and inside words only
+after existing hyphens.
+.Pp
 The mathematical minus sign is used for negative numbers or subtraction.
 It should be written as
 .Sq \e(mi :