How to replace hyphenation with variable space size?

Question

I have been searching for an answer for this question for too long now. I have tried different hyphenation commands and packages but they don't seem to work.

My problem is that I am writing my text in finnish and LaTeX generates a lot of hyphens in it. Finnish as a language has many long words so you can imagine what the text would look like at its worst. Is it possible to disable hyphenation and use variable space sizes to pad in the rest of the content automatically? Word seems to be capable of this.

I can somewhat live with the hyphenation, but I can't help but wonder that there should be an easy solution for a problem like this. I am currently using the following packages:

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[finnish]{babel}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{hyperref}

EDIT: I will make a clarification: I do not mind if the generated spaces have big differences between them. I just want a way to replace the hyphens with variable space size without making major modification to the text.

Answer 1

It's not difficult to avoid hyphenation, if you are willing to accept very lousy typesetting.

In the example I use two column format to emphasize the effect:

\documentclass[12pt,twocolumn]{article}

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[finnish]{babel}

\begin{document}

Helsinki on Suomen pääkaupunki ja Uudenmaan maakuntakeskus.
Se sijaitsee Suomenlahden pohjoisrannalla Uudenmaan maakunnan
keskiosassa. Helsingin naapurikunnat ovat lännessä Espoo,
pohjoisessa Vantaa ja idässä Sipoo. Kaupungissa on 642\,045
asukasta. Helsingin keskustaajama ulottuu usean naapurikunnan
alueelle. Laajemmalla Helsingin seudun metropolialueella on
1\,456\,619 asukasta.

\hyphenpenalty=10000 \spaceskip=0.3em plus 4em minus 0.2em

Helsinki on Suomen pääkaupunki ja Uudenmaan maakuntakeskus.
Se sijaitsee Suomenlahden pohjoisrannalla Uudenmaan maakunnan
keskiosassa. Helsingin naapurikunnat ovat lännessä Espoo,
pohjoisessa Vantaa ja idässä Sipoo. Kaupungissa on 642\,045
asukasta. Helsingin keskustaajama ulottuu usean naapurikunnan
alueelle. Laajemmalla Helsingin seudun metropolialueella on
1\,456\,619 asukasta.

\end{document}

The same in one column format.

I'm not sure why you don't want hyphenation: it has been a common typographic device for centuries.

Answer 2

TeX has many parameters that you can use to control the relative desirability of stretching space and hyphenation. LaTeX has to default configurations, \fussy and \sloppy. It may be that you would be happy with the \sloppy setting which allows more space stretching, but the example below shows two more "even sloppier" settings that increase the penalty for hyphenation.

\documentclass{article}


\def\test{%
It's Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
Even though the sound of it
Is something quite atrocious
It's Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
Even though the sound of it
Is something quite atrocious
It's Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
Even though the sound of it
Is something quite atrocious
It's Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
Even though the sound of it
Is something quite atrocious
It's Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
Even though the sound of it
Is something quite atrocious
It's Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
Even though the sound of it
Is something quite atrocious
It's Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
Even though the sound of it
Is something quite atrocious
It's Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
Even though the sound of it
Is something quite atrocious
It's Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
Even though the sound of it
Is something quite atrocious

}

\begin{document}

{\test}

{\sloppy
\test
}

{\sloppy\hyphenpenalty=1000 \emergencystretch10em
\test}

{\sloppy\hyphenpenalty=10000 \emergencystretch\textwidth
\test}

\end{document}