What are orphans and widows? In print publishing, one line appearing at the top of a column, without any other lines from its paragraph, is known as an orphan. One line appearing at the bottom of the column without any other lines from its paragraph is known as a widow. Some people just call orphans and widows bad breaks. Call them what you will, they’re typically not welcome in a print layouts.
Both Adobe InDesign CS2 and Quark’s QuarkXPress have controls that easily and automatically prevent orphans and windows. (The following steps assume you understand and use style sheets.)
In QuarkXPress
- Choose Edit > Style Sheets and Edit the Style Sheet you want to have the Orphan and Widow controls
- Select the Formats tab
- Select Keep Lines Together
- Select Start 2 End 2 (click the radio button to the left of the word Start)
- Click OK
- Click Save
In InDesign CS 2
- Ensure nothing is selected
- Select the Selection Tool
- Double-click the Style Sheet you want to have the Orphan and Widow controls
- Select Keep Options
- Select Keep Lines Together
- Select At Start/End of Paragraph
- Ensure that both Start and End are set to 2 lines
- Click OK