When the first line of a paragraph appears as the last line of a column, or the last line of a paragraph - especially a short one (a widow) - appears at the top of a column, the column’s corner appears to be dented, especially if the margins are justified.Īlthough a one-line orphan is certainly bad, just how many lines of type should by definition constitute an orphan is another arguing point. The problem with orphans is that they mar the geometry of the page, creating the appearance of a bit of text that seems to be flaking off the rest of the column.
#TYPESETTING WIDOWS AND ORPHANS MANUALS#
Many typographic manuals don’t even recognize the existence of an entity called an orphan, but it’s a useful term to describe a short portion of a paragraph - either a beginning or an end - that’s badly positioned within a column, again at either beginning or end. In this context, though, it’s marginally acceptable. The short line at the end of the fourth paragraph might be considered a problem if all the other last lines on the page nearly filled the measure. A second widow appears at the end of the third paragraph. The first paragraph has a hyphenated widow bad in itself, it is also so short that it barely covers the 2-em paragraph indent below it. In the following text (set in 11/14 Georgia over 25 picas), a rash of widows appears. A hyphenated widow - in which the last line of a paragraph is a morsel of a hyphenated word - is a particularly egregious subspecies. The wider the line length (also called measure), the more impact a very short widow can have. According to what I learned as a lad, a widow becomes a problem when it’s so short that it creates the visual impression of a blank line between paragraphs. Most everyone agrees that a widow is a short last line of a paragraph. At the end, you can use whatever terms you like for these conditions, as long as we all agree on solutions to the problems they raise. But for the sake of this discussion - and because I’m writing it - let’s use my definitions for the time being. Discussions of typographic widows and orphans normally start with an argument about definitions and what these terms precisely mean.
0 kommentar(er)
