Horrors! But as my editor she can do what she wants.An interesting question and one whose answer is more subtle than it may initially seem. (My editor says that she sometimes fixes these hyphenated fragments by adding or deleting text to fill out or pull up a line. They are easy enough to fix (more on that in a bit) and not doing so reflects badly on all involved.
In my mind, these are the worst kind of word widows. However, the text in Figure 5 is an excellent example of a word widow that comes from a hyphenated word. These guidelines show that the last line in Figure 4 isn’t a word widow.
the word occupies more space than a regular paragraph indent. the word is complete and not the second part of a hyphenated word. the word and punctuation have a minimum of six characters. Single words (and their final punctuation) that fall by themselves on the last line of a paragraph are allowed provided that: The best set of guidelines I have seen on this come from Walton Harris, production coordinator of the University of Georgia Press. The horribly short two-letter word at the end of the first paragraph creates a huge white gap between the two paragraphs.įigure 4: This single word on the last line of a paragraph is far too long to be considered a word widow. It’s bad enough when a single word stands on a line of its own, but a short word is even worse. Take a look at the block of text in Figure 3 below. In keeping with my own logic, I call these “word widows.” Most people define this as “the last line of a paragraph that consists of a single word.” Word widows look worst when they occur with text that has indents for the first line of a paragraph. In addition to what I dubbed “line orphans,” another typographic problem is also called a widow. Some layouts require some adjustment to the interparagraph spacing to eliminate that extra line, though many designers don’t mind the extra white space. This will create a line of extra white space at the bottom of the previous page. If there is only a single line at the bottom of the page, the command will move it to the next page with the rest of the paragraph. For instance, if there aren’t enough lines at the end of the paragraph, some lines from the previous page will be forced to the next page. Once set, these commands work automatically to move lines across the page break. Enter a number for the End to ensure that there are at least a certain number of lines at the end of a paragraph. Enter a number for the Start value to ensure that there are at least a certain number of lines at the start of a paragraph. 
The Start and End values let you specify how many lines must stay together to start or end a paragraph. In QuarkXPress, choose Style > Formats to open the Paragraph Attributes dialog box (Figure 1).įigure 2: Keep Lines Together in Adobe InDesign Both QuarkXPress and Adobe InDesign have controls that can automatically keep lines together. I’d rather call both problems “line orphans.” The word “line” explains that we’re talking about a line of text and the word “orphan” explains that it is has been separated from its family.įortunately, word processing and page layout programs have made it very easy to control line orphans. And then others call both problems orphans. Still other sources call both problems widows. Some sources call the first problem a widow and the second an orphan. The confusion as to what to call these problems is rampant. Look at all that ugly white space at the top of column! This type of problem is especially awful if the last line is a short one. This is when the last line of a paragraph is sent, all by itself, across a page or column break, as shown above. The second type of layout problem is the reverse of the first.
Typographic problem #2: The last line of a paragraph is sent all alone to the next page when a paragraph breaks across a column or page.
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