![]() Microsoft Word’s default paragraph formatting includes widow and orphan control: it will push an orphan to the next page or column, and it will push an extra line to the next page or column to prevent a widow. ![]() The word-processing and layout programs I’m familiar with prevent them automatically. Words Into Type is blunt about it: “Widows must be eliminated.” Itĭoesn’t address orphans, but if it did, I imagine it would be similarly stern.įortunately, widows and orphans are usually easy to eliminate. ![]() ![]() (They’re from the Fredericksburg, Va., Free Lance–Star, Sep. The orphaned headings in the picture above make me shudder. Definitions vary, but because I used to work in a typesetting house before desktop publishing was invented (yes, we used stone tablets and chisels), I’ll give my definitions: a widow is the last line of a paragraph that sits alone at the top of a page or column an orphan is the first line of a paragraph or (shudder) a heading that sits alone at the bottom of a page or column. Widows and orphans-how sad is that? In typesetting, the words denote sad situations: a word or a line of type separated from the rest of a paragraph.
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