Lao is traditionally written with no visible breaks between words, which leads to the problem that when a document (or paragraph) width is changed, text may be split in the middle of a word, making it hard to read.
Probably the best solution would be for Windows to identify the right place to break the text, and automatically wrap it when a paragraph is displayed (as is done for Thai), but no version of Windows yet provides such "display-time wrapping" of Lao text. (As at September 2011.)
Microsoft Office 2010 does implement display-time wrapping of Lao text, but only users of that version of Microsoft Office are able to display such documents correctly. For example, when a Word document is saved using an older (.doc or .rtf) format, or opened on a computer that uses an older version of Word, the text will no longer wrap correctly.
LaoScript 8 continues to provide the same solution to this problem used by earler versions of Lao Script for Windows, by automatically inserting invisible "break" characters at syllable or word boundaries. In this way, Lao text wraps correctly in almost all types of documents when opened on Windows XP or any later version of Windows.
When entering text and using Unicode fonts, LaoScript 8 inserts the (Unicode standard) "ZWSP" (zero-width space) invisible character at the word boundaries identified according to the established rules for writing Lao syllables. (For non-Unicode fonts, a break character appropriate for the font is inserted.)
Since some words, especially loan words, do not follow normal Lao spelling rules, the Lao Add-Ins (for Word and other applications) allow text to be wrapped more accurately, using a Lao dictionary as well as syllable-patterns to identify word boundaries. Users can easily extend the dictionary for irregular words in their own documents. (See Lao Wordlist for more information.)