A soft hyphen, often represented by the symbol "" (U+00AD), is a character used in word processing and typesetting to indicate a suggested hyphenation point within a word. Unlike a regular hyphen, which forces a line break at a specific point, a soft hyphen suggests a hyphenation point only if the word needs to be broken at the end of a line. If the word fits on the line without breaking, the soft hyphen is invisible and has no effect on the appearance of the text. This feature helps improve the readability and aesthetics of text, especially in situations where automatic text wrapping occurs.