Widows and Orphans - do you avoid them?

Widows and Orphans - do you avoid them?

In typography of course! To produce a professionally finished document, be it a flyer, report or brochure, you need to be on the lookout for these visually.

So what are they?

A Widow is one word on a line, all on its own at the end of a block of text. You can either reword the text to avoid this, or you can use tracking and kerning options in Indesign to pull it back onto the previous line. (Or likewise, bump something else forward)

An Orphan is to be avoided at all costs. This is where you have one word leftover from the end of a paragraph, that's found itself at the start of a brand new page or text block. Just one. This looks unprofessional and careless, so be sure to be on the lookout to spot these and use some typographic trickery to banish them forever!