Widows and orphans

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Not to be confused with Masonic Widows and Orphans Home.
For other uses, see Widow-and-orphan stock, Widow (disambiguation), and Orphan (disambiguation).
A widowed line: the last line of a paragraph, all alone on the other side of a page break.
At 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.

In typesetting, widows and orphans are lines at the beginning or end of a paragraph which are left dangling at the top or bottom of a page or column, separated from the rest of the paragraph. (The typographer's terms for the top and bottom of a page or column are head and foot.)

Definitions[]

There is some disagreement about the definitions of widows and orphans; what one source calls a widow another calls an orphan.[1][full citation needed][2][3] The Chicago Manual of Style provides these definitions:[3][dead link]

Widow
A paragraph-ending line that falls at the beginning of the following page or column, thus separated from the rest of the text. Mnemonically, a widow is "alone at the top" (of the family tree but, in this case, of the page).
Orphan
A paragraph-opening line that appears by itself at the bottom of a page or column, thus separated from the rest of the text. Mnemonically, an orphan is "alone at the bottom" (of the family tree but, in this case, of the page).
Alternately, a word, part of a word, or very short line that appears by itself at the end of a paragraph. Mnemonically still "alone at the bottom", just this time at the bottom of a paragraph. Orphans of this type give the impression of too much white space between paragraphs.

Guidelines[]

About the appearance of a page of text, the Chicago Manual of Style indicates that a manuscript should have no orphans or widows, even if their elimination leaves additional blank space at the bottom of the column or the page.[4] In the 16th edition, the Chicago Manual of Style (2011) suggests a new convention to determine which pages may end with the first line of a new paragraph.[5]

The techniques for eliminating widows include:

  • Forcing a page break early, producing a shorter page;
  • Adjusting the leading, the space between lines of text;
  • Adjusting the spacing between words to produce tighter or looser paragraphs;
  • Adjusting the hyphenation within the paragraph;
  • Adjusting the margins of the page;
  • Subtle scaling of the page without distorting the letters;
  • Rewriting a portion of the paragraph;
  • Reduce the letter-spacing (tracking) of the words;
  • Adding a pull quote to the text (usual in magazines); and
  • Adding a floating block (figure) to the text, or resizing an existing figure.

An orphan is more easily deleted, either by inserting a blank line or by forcing a page break to push the orphan line onto the next page, to be part of the paragraph to which the orphan belongs. 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. 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. 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.

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. 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. Manual overrides such, as inserted empty lines or extra spaces, can cause insert white space into the middle of pages.

References[]

  1. ^ Carter, Rob. A widowed line, highlighted in yellow.
  2. ^ Day, Ben. Meggs, Philip. Typographic Design: Form and Communication. 2nd ed. John Wiley & Sons: 1993. p. 263.
  3. ^ a b Chicago Manual of Style Archived 2020-10-24 at the Wayback Machine.[dead link]
  4. ^ Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Edition, 3.11 Overall appearance: "A page should not begin with the last line of a paragraph unless it is full measure and should not end with the first line of a new paragraph."
  5. ^ Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition, 2.113: "A page should not begin with the last line of a paragraph unless it is full measure. (A page can, however, end with the first line of a new paragraph.)"
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