![typesetting widows and orphans typesetting widows and orphans](https://www.thebookdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/orphan.png)
orphan: The first or last line of a paragraph, when it appears alone on a page.
Typesetting widows and orphans manual#
Manual overrides such, as inserted empty lines or extra spaces, can cause insert white space into the middle of pages. In technical writing, where a single source may be published in different formats, with the viewer's expectation of viewing content in different sizes and resolutions, the paragraph settings automatically prevent widows and orphans. Most full-feature word processors and page layout applications include an automatic paragraph setting that prevents widows and orphans thus, an orphan is forced to the top of the next page or column and the text line preceding a widow is forced to the next page or column. Sometimes it can also be useful to add non-breaking spaces to the first two (or few) short words of a paragraph to avoid that a single orphaned word is placed to the left or right of a picture or table, while the remainder of the text (with longer words) would only appear after the table. In web-publishing, this is typically accomplished by concatenating the words in question with a non-breaking space and, if available, by utilizing the orphans: and widows: attributes in Cascading Style Sheets. Similarly, an orphan word at the end of a paragraph can be relocated by forcing one or more words from the preceding text line into the paragraph line of the orphan.
![typesetting widows and orphans typesetting widows and orphans](https://i0.wp.com/nukefactory.com/wp-content/uploads/runts.png)
Mnemonically, a widow is "alone at the top" (of the family tree but, in this case, of the page). The Chicago Manual of Style provides these definitions: Widow A paragraph-ending line that falls at the beginning of the following page or column, thus separated from the rest of the text. There is some disagreement about the definitions of widows and orphans what one source calls a widow another calls an orphan. (The typographer's terms for the top and bottom of a page or column are head and foot.) Definitions In typesetting, widows and orphans are lines at the beginning or end of a paragraph that are left dangling at the top or bottom of a page or column, separated from the rest of the paragraph. A widowed line: the last line of a paragraph, all alone on the other side of a page break.Īt the end of the first paragraph, the word "lorem" is an orphan in the second sense: a very short final line that, because the rest of its line is white, creates an impression of two lines of whitespace between the paragraphs.