Please help improve this article by introducing citations to additional sources.įind sources: 'Widows and orphans' – news Ībout 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.

Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. This section relies largely or entirely on a single source. Orphans of this type give the impression of too much white space between paragraphs. Mnemonically still 'alone at the bottom', just this time at the bottom of a paragraph. Alternately, a word, part of a word, or very short line that appears by itself at the end of a paragraph.

Mnemonically, an orphan is 'alone at the bottom' (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, 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.) 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.

Widow orphan settings in word