Joe, as far as I can tell (from deduction using InD and reviewing the way the manual reads), hyphenation is a paragraph level kind of setting unless you alter the hyphenation and spelling dictionary preferences.

Help > Working with text > Working with hyphenation and spelling dictionaries

Jon

Hi Joe,

Re. your "global setting":
1.Fire up InDesign and
2. Don't have ANY documents open,
3. then enter your type specifications (like style, optical kerning, color, and H&J settings) in the Character and Paragraph palettes. These settings become the defaults for any future documents you create.

My initial settings for the Hyphenation slider are:
Words longer than: 6
After first: 3
Before last: 3
Hyphen limit: 3 (when I'm setting justified text, that is)
The Hyphenation Zone slider: I bump it 2 notches to the left (of center) towards "better spacing".

For ragged text, I try to use no hyphens (or as few as possible). A main aim of using a ragged setting (as I understand it) is to maintain even spacing.

all the best,

Kaisa

Joe, in some industries you don't have a choice. The banking industry for one, doesn't allow hypenation of any kind. As for my taste I like hypenation as long as its in InDesign and i can hang the hypens. I thought the informal rule was never more than 3 hypens in a row.

On a simular thought do you know about the on-line InDesign magazine being published through Creative Pro. Those writers would have a better perspective of the "rules". You can get a free copy at Creative Pro.