Automatic hyphenation - preventing the last word of a paragraph from being automatically hyphenated

Br. Emmanuel Labrise 85 Reputation points
2026-09-14T15:01:29.7366667+00:00

Dear Sir / Madam,

I am an author and would like to use automatic hyphenation on a book manuscript. Is it possible to prevent word from automatically hyphenating the last word of a paragraph? I know how to turn automatic hyphenation off using right click --> Paragraph --> Line and Space Breaks --> Don't hyphenate, but this causes the whole paragraph to be unhyphenated, which changes the "texture" of it such that it can contrast in styles with the auto-hyphenated paragraphs around it.

If this is not possible, then is there a way to set automatic hyphenation such that it only puts a maximum number of two (or three, or some other number) of hyphens in a paragraph, thus minimizing the possibility that the last word will be hyphenated?

If not, then do you have another suggestion?

Thank you.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows
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Answer accepted by question author
Stefan Blom 351.7K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
2026-09-14T15:18:53.2966667+00:00

As far as I know, there are no hyphenation options which directly affect individual text lines within a paragraph.

However, at File > Options > Advanced, there is a Layout option called "Allow hyphenation between pages and columns." You would want that one to be cleared.

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