So Happy Together - Part I

Cue the mood music

Avoiding Awkward Page Breaks with Widow/Orphan Control

I consider a page break awkward when the lines of a paragraph are not neatly split, such as when a single line of a paragraph is left alone, or a heading is separated from the following paragraph. There are three simple ways to automatically control how paragraphs are broken across pages; the first is Widow/Orphan control. Widow lines occur when the first line of a paragraph is separated from the rest.

Orphan lines occur when the last line of a paragraph is separated from the rest.

To prevent widow and orphan lines in a document, follow these steps:

1. Begin by selecting the paragraph(s) you want to prevent from being split.
2. Next, open the Paragraph dialog box by clicking the dialog box launcher in the Paragraph group in Home ribbon.
   
   
3. If necessary, select the Line and Page Breaks tab.
4. Then, check the Widow/Orphan control box.

Make it Stick

There are very few instances where it is appropriate to leave a widow or orphan line – in fact, I can’t think of any! I believe this setting should be used for every paragraph in virtually every document, so I recommend adding it to the normal template. That way it’s always applied when creating new documents. Of course, if you find a situation where you need to allow widow and orphan lines, you can always turn off the feature.

Here’s how to enable widow/orphan control for new documents:

1. Begin by opening a new blank document.
2. Follow steps 2-4 above.
3. Click the Default button at the bottom of the Paragraph dialog box. A message will appear warning that you are about to change default paragraph formatting and asking if you want this change to affect all new documents based on the normal template.
   
   

4. Click Yes.

If you use other templates and would like to enable widow/orphan control by default in them, begin by opening the template to update, then follow the procedure above.

Check back for part two of this article next week.