Occasionally, Japanese ESL documents can have strange, unexplained word breaks. Even with the formatting marks showing, there doesn't seem to be a reason for these word breaks. Luckily, there's a solution, though it's a little convoluted.

On your computer, you have to click

• Start

• Programs

• Microsoft Office (these might vary slightly depending on your version)

• Microsoft Office Tools

• Microsoft Office Language Settings (or Preferences).

Add Japanese.

Restart your Word program.

• Open the document.

• Highlight the offending section(s) of text.

• Right click.

• Click "Paragraph."

• Click "Asian Typography" (which probably wasn't there previously)

• Click off the arrow for "Allow Latin text wrap in the middle of a word"

• Click "OK."

Repeat as necessary for subsequent sections of text where the problem occurs. The text should not wrap weirdly now or be broken in odd places.

Last Updated: 09/09/2022