Skip to content

soft_hyphen

Simon Cozens edited this page May 8, 2025 · 2 revisions

Does the font contain a soft hyphen?

soft_hyphen

  • Applies to: TTF
  • Fontspector can hotfix?: no
  • Fontspector can fix sources?: no

Rationale

The 'Soft Hyphen' character (codepoint 0x00AD) is used to mark a hyphenation possibility within a word in the absence of or overriding dictionary hyphenation.

It is sometimes designed empty with no width (such as a control character), sometimes the same as the traditional hyphen, sometimes double encoded with the hyphen.

That being said, it is recommended to not include it in the font at all, because discretionary hyphenation should be handled at the level of the shaping engine, not the font. Also, even if present, the software would not display that character.

More discussion at: https://typedrawers.com/discussion/2046/special-dash-things-softhyphen-horizontalbar

Proposals

Profiles

  • universal (in section 'Universal Profile Checks')

  • googlefonts (in section 'Universal Profile Checks')

Clone this wiki locally