{"schema":"cpc-unicode-answer-v1","question":"What does a soft hyphen do?","answer":"A discretionary hyphenation control that can become visible at a line break. Code points: U+00AD. Its rendered appearance depends on line wrapping and rendering context. A non-equivalent fallback is \"-\" (Visible hyphen). Always visible; changes spelling or typography. Font coverage, shaping, and application acceptance were not tested, so those results are unknown.","unicodeVersion":"18.0.0","purpose":"general","citation":"Do not invent a platform-support claim from this data.","page":"/answers/what-a-soft-hyphen-does/","markdown":"/answers/what-a-soft-hyphen-does.md","sample":"­","codepoints":[{"codepoint":"U+00AD","name":"SOFT HYPHEN","displayLabel":"[SHY]","warnings":["space-or-formatting","soft-hyphen"],"explanations":[{"id":"soft-hyphen","title":"Soft hyphen","behavior":"A discretionary hyphenation control that can become visible at a line break.","limitation":"Its rendered appearance depends on line wrapping and rendering context.","fix":"Use an ordinary visible hyphen only when it is part of the actual text.","source":"https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr14/","alternatives":[{"value":"-","reason":"Visible hyphen","tradeoff":"Always visible; changes spelling or typography."}],"evidenceTier":"standards-informed-editorial","evidence":{"behavior":"standards-informed","compatibility":"not-tested","repair":"editorial-guidance"}}]}],"comparison":null,"graphemes":{"status":"available","method":"runtime-intl-segmenter","unicodeDataVersion":"runtime-unknown","count":1,"segments":[{"text":"­","utf16Offset":0,"codepoints":["U+00AD"]}]},"normalizationChanged":{"NFC":false,"NFD":false,"NFKC":false,"NFKD":false},"normalizationUnicodeDataVersion":"runtime-unknown","targetCompatibility":{"status":"unknown","evidenceTier":"not-tested","purpose":"general","explanation":"No OS, font, browser, application, field policy or rendering engine was tested. Unicode validity and segmentation do not establish actual display or acceptance."}}