Widows and orphans

Widows and orphans are single lines of text that appear at the beginning or end of a page when a paragraph has split between two pages. These should be avoided because they interrupt the flow of text for the reader. People with learning difficulties and impaired sight also find it diffficult to follow text that is split over two pages.

If you are using paragraph styles, you can set up your body text style to avoid widows and orphans. To do this:

• first place your cursor on a paragraph of body text

• select Style from the Format menu

• click on Modify

• click on Format and select Paragraph

• select the Line and page breaks tab

• click on Widow/orphan control so that it is selected.

Headings can also become separated from paragraphs of text. You can avoid this by setting your heading style to `keep with next'. See Spacing guidelines for more details of how to do this.