Orphan (typesetting)

In typesetting, an orphan is a word or the last line of a paragraph appearing at the top of a page, with the rest of the paragraph appearing on the preceding page. A related concept is the widow, being the first line of a paragraph appearing at the bottom of a page with the remainder appearing on the following page. Both orphans and widows are usually considered unattractive and should be suppressed. Some of the techniques for eliminating an unwanted orphan or widow include:\n* forcing a page break early, producing a short page,\n* adjusting the leading (line spacing) or inter-paragraph spacing,\n* adjusting the word spacing to produce tight or loose paragraphs,\n* rewrite the paragraph.