You can normally access this dialog by choosing the "Tools | Hyphenation..." menu command or clicking the Hyphenation button of the Tools toolbar , then clicking the Customize... button.

In Atlantis, both Automatic and Manual Hyphenation normally apply or suggest built-in hyphenation patterns. However, if you are not happy with some of the Atlantis default hyphenation patterns, you can use the Customize Hyphenation dialog to create custom lists of hyphenation patterns.
In other words, if you don't want particular words to be hyphenated in the way suggested by Atlantis, you have to add your own custom hyphenation pattern for them to the current list of custom hyphenation patterns. The custom patterns found in the currently loaded list will automatically substitute for the default patterns normally used or suggested by Atlantis.
Note that you can create and save as many lists with custom hyphenation patterns as you want. These custom hyphenation files are pure text files with the ".txt" extension. They can also be saved to removable media and transferred to a different PC where they can be (re)loaded in Atlantis with the Load from File... button found in this dialog.

Hyphenation patterns are words for which possible hyphen positions have been defined. Typically, a hyphenation pattern will look like the corresponding word, but with additional hyphens. Let's take an example. The hyphenation pattern for "combination" is "com-bi-na-tion". This pattern defines 3 possible positions for the hyphen and means that "combination" can be hyphenated across lines in any one of the 3 following ways:

   com-
   bination

or

   combi-
   nation

or

   combina-
   tion

Which hyphen position is actually chosen depends on the size of the empty space at the end of the line and on the width of the hyphenation zone in the Tools | Hyphenation... dialog. By hyphenation zone is meant the amount of blank space that Atlantis can leave between the last word in a line and the right margin. The more blank space is allowed, the less words will be hyphenated across lines. On the contrary, more words will be hyphenated across lines if you allow less blank space at line ends, —that is if you specify a narrow hyphenation zone.

Note that hyphenation patterns are case insensitive. Atlantis will make no difference between lowercase and uppercase letters. For example, "elvis", "Elvis", and "ELVIS" can all be entered for the same hyphenation pattern. But normally, —and to make reading more comfortable, all custom hyphenation patterns should be in lowercase.

When the hyphenation pattern suggested by Atlantis actually includes no hyphen, this means that the corresponding word is not usually hyphenated. These are mainly short words of few syllables. For example, the following English words are not traditionally hyphenated across lines:

   whishes

   hoarder

   gnarred

   whapped

   fritzes

   whicker

   drafty

Use the Hyphenation pattern box to enter any new custom hyphenation pattern. You can then click the Add button to add it to the current list of hyphenation patterns.

Note that this list might already contain a hyphenation pattern for the same word. In this case, you can no longer add a hyphenation pattern for that word. You can only replace the existing pattern. Accordingly, a different button will be showing, —the Replace button.

The Delete button removes the currently selected item from the list of hyphenation patterns.

The Load from File... button loads a list of hyphenation patterns from a previously saved hyphenation pattern file.

The Save to File... button saves the current list of hyphenation patterns to a plain text file.

See also...