Understanding the Hot Zone

When Word hyphenates your document, it checks to see how much of a word could be moved to the previous line if it was hyphenated. To do this, it uses what is referred to as a hot zone or a hyphenation zone. This is an area that is eligible for hyphenation at the right side of each line. You set the hot zone when you choose Hyphenate from the Tools menu. If you choose a hot zone of 1/2 inch, then Word will not hyphenate a word if the space on the previous line is less than 1/2 inch. Setting a small hot zone results in more hyphenating, whereas a larger hot zone results in faster operation of the hyphenation tool.