When will Publisher's word-splitting feature be available?

[Seon Jae, Jeon]

Hello?
I have been requesting the word splitting feature for several years now, but it has not been implemented yet.
We are Korean.
We do not use the publisher for publishing because the publisher does not have the word splitting feature.
When will this feature be available?
I hope you can implement the word splitting feature as soon as possible.
Thank you.

[GarryP]

1 hour ago, Seon Jae, Jeon said:

I have been requesting the word splitting feature for several years now, but it has not been implemented yet.

From what I can see in your public forum history, you have only ever asked about this in the Questions section of the forums but never in the Feedback and Suggestions sections.

Serif monitor the Questions threads but they do not use the contents of those threads as requests/suggestions for functionality additions or changes.

Because of this, you have not been (as far as I can tell) properly ‘requesting’ anything.

If you want to make a request/suggestion for additional functionality then you might like to make a new thread in the relevant section of the forums so that Serif can see it as a request/suggestion. Please search first to make sure there isn’t already one there about the same thing, and if there is ‘add your voice’ to that instead of creating a new thread.

Note: Creating new threads asking/posting about the same thing as you’ve done in other threads is against the forum guidelines. If there’s already a thread about a particular subject then all you need to do is add a new post to it rather than make a new thread. This helps to keep all of the discussions about a particular subject together in one place.

Note: When something has been requested/suggested there's no need to request/suggest it again. Either Serif will do something about it at some point, or they will not.

[thomaso]

4 hours ago, Seon Jae, Jeon said:

requesting the word splitting feature for (…) Korean.

"Word splitting" in Affinity is called "hyphenation", it's workflow is defined in specific "hyphenation dictionary" files which get added to the Affinity app or the computer's operating system. As far I understand, Asian languages & scripts do not use hyphenation dictionaries.

Unfortunately I don't speak any Asian language, so I am sorry if my hints are not useful. If you want to enable line breaks after each "character" (glyph, symbol, 문자) possibly a workaround might help to surround the lacking hyphenation. It uses the "Find and Replace" panel and its "Regular Expressions" mode for adding a hidden space as an invisible, special character between every text symbol. This way a line break may happen after every of those additional characters.

In the example below, western/Latin characters + numbers + the dot (.) + usual white spaces are excluded from this additions to avoid their unwanted hyphenation. It may require to get refined, for instance to avoid hyphenation in words with 2 or 3 glyphs only or before or after a certain glyph or type of character.

Find: [^A-Za-z0-9.\s]
Replace: $0 + 'Zero Width Space'

[Jeanman Kim]

I purchased Affinity Publisher yesterday with high hopes, only to be deeply disappointed by the absence of Character-level Justification(or above mentioned it as word-splitting) This feature is a cornerstone of professional Korean typography, ensuring that text aligns evenly by adjusting the spacing at the character level. While it might seem minor, its absence makes professional book publishing in Korean almost impossible.

To be fair, I should have checked for this feature before purchasing the software. However, I didn’t expect a tool marketed as a professional publishing solution to lack such a fundamental function for Korean text. This omission suggests that Affinity’s Korean language support is incomplete, despite claims to the contrary.

In Korea, Character-level Justification isn’t just a preference—it’s a necessity. All major word processing and publishing tools widely used in the Korean market, including Microsoft Word and Hancom’s Hangul Word Processor (HWP), have long supported this feature. Without it, text appears poorly aligned, especially in justified paragraphs, creating an unprofessional appearance that’s unacceptable for print publications.

For Affinity Publisher to claim proper support for the Korean language, the inclusion of Character-level Justification is essential. This feature isn’t optional for Korean users; it’s a baseline requirement for creating books, magazines, and other professional documents.

I urge the Affinity team to prioritize the development of this feature. Without it, Affinity Publisher cannot fully meet the needs of Korean users or compete with existing tools in the market. Adding Character-level Justification would not only align with Korean typographic standards but also show that Affinity truly values its users worldwide.

Please consider this critical enhancement in future updates. Korean publishers, like me, would appreciate it immensely.

[thomaso]

44 minutes ago, Jeanman Kim said:

I purchased Affinity Publisher yesterday with high hopes, only to be deeply disappointed by the absence of Character-level Justification(or above mentioned it as word-splitting) This feature is a cornerstone of professional Korean typography, ensuring that text aligns evenly by adjusting the spacing at the character level. While it might seem minor, its absence makes professional book publishing in Korean almost impossible.

It seems like this issue especially with Korean (but not Chinese/Japanese?) was reported years ago and logged by Serif as a known bug #apl-91. If you want, add your note to one of these threads or create a new one for Affinity V2 to at least 'nudge' the reports to the attention of Serif moderators/developers.

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/search/&tags=apl-91

Alternatively, if you are unable to use Affinity appropriately, you may consider a refund.

https://store.serif.com/help/#returns

Quote

Returns and Refunds

What is your returns policy?

We want you to be 100% satisfied with your Affinity purchase. If you are not satisfied with your product for any reason, you may return it within a 14 day period after receipt of your product to receive a full refund. Please email affinityreturns@serif.com with your name, order number and reason for returning the item to begin the process.

[Jeanman Kim]

17 hours ago, thomaso said:

It seems like this issue especially with Korean (but not Chinese/Japanese?) was reported years ago and logged by Serif as a known bug #apl-91. If you want, add your note to one of these threads or create a new one for Affinity V2 to at least 'nudge' the reports to the attention of Serif moderators/developers.

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/search/&tags=apl-91

Alternatively, if you are unable to use Affinity appropriately, you may consider a refund.

https://store.serif.com/help/#returns

ubject: Inquiry Regarding Text Wrapping in Korean

Dear Team,

First, I would like to briefly and clearly explain the issue at hand.

The Korean writing system is composed of alphabets, characters, words, and sentences.

• Alphabets in Korean consist of consonants and vowels. (likeㄱ,ㄴ,ㄷ,ㄹ, ㅏ, ㅑ,ㅓ, ㅕ)
• By combining these consonants and vowels, a character is formed. This is what I refer to as a "character" above. (like 학, 교, 퍼, 블, 리, 셔)
• Then, characters are combined to form words.(like, 학교, 퍼블리셔)

Unlike European languages, many Asian languages, including Korean, split lines based on characters rather than words when wrapping text at the end of a line.

The most significant difference between Korean and languages like Japanese or Chinese is that Korean uses spaces between words, whereas Japanese and Chinese do not. This might make Korean text appear somewhat unique. Since Japanese and Chinese wrap text based on characters, I am requesting that Korean text also be handled similarly.

Interestingly, this issue might not be well-known unless one is familiar with Korean word processors. For example, Adobe Illustrator has not resolved this issue. However, Adobe InDesign(only Korean version) addresses it by leveraging the English hyphenation system, which may seem unconventional to native Korean users. To the best of my knowledge, enabling "auto-hyphen" in the settings resolves the issue, which is why discussions about hyphenation often arise. It seems that InDesign internally inserts hyphens between Korean characters, but these hyphens are not visibly rendered.

If this issue is classified as a bug, I believe it can be fixed, and I am not seeking a refund. Especially since I purchased the Affinity V2 Universal License (without any coupons) rather than just a single program, requesting a refund would be somewhat impractical. The price difference between purchasing only two programs and the universal license is negligible. Therefore, I hope this issue can be resolved rather than seeking a refund.

We, Koreans, consider this issue very important and see it as a significant opportunity for Affinity. Adobe Illustrator has not properly addressed this issue, making Korean-related design work very inconvenient. If this feature is improved, the number of Korean users could increase dramatically.

 

Thank you for your attention, and I appreciate your efforts in addressing this matter.