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Old school...
I guess I come from an old school newspaper background, but in my mind, one word on a line at the end of a paragraph is NEVER acceptable... how about a little old fashioned editing, if you have that freedom?
Who has time to look at every paragraph ending?
In a perfect world, I could look at the end of every paragraph I set. In this world, however, I have production deadlines that must be met. Kytek (603-529-2512, www.kytek.com) sells a short line eliminator extension for Quark. It lets you define short line paragraph endings and fixes them by changing tracking within permissible boundaries. You can also specify no hyphenated word endings. Wouldn't it be nice if you could tell Quark not to break contractions and hyphenated compound words?
Negative Tracking the Best Solution
I was getting nervous when I saw the first two solutions for fixing the "word windows." Inserting a non-breaking space or a manual line break in the example shown resulted in horrible spacing throughout the paragraph. Fixing one problem caused another.
The use of negative tracking (especially with a guideline such as a maximum of -5, which I use myself) creates much better spacing throughout the paragraph, and is much more subtle.
well done
Itr is about time that "designers" on web as well as print began taking notice of typography. Simple rules that ehhance the readability of an article or a story.
Some mention should also be made to minimum /maximum line length.
It would also be nice if web programs would allow leading to be used to make an article readable. Too tight means that tyhe eye has difficulty finding the beginning of the next line.
In conclusion she should have mentioned that a widow is a line of type less than one-third of the established line length of the paragraph. That would have answered the question about " isthis too short"
Rick Lincol
Designshed@aol.com
Rewriting is a valid solution too
Sandee is horrified at her editor adding or deleting words to solve typographic problems. But I'd consider that normal good editorial/typographic practice. Ideally, the writer should be involved (especially if it's a significant change). But editing routinely involves cutting material, adding headlines etc. A good editor will do this with great care, to enhance the writer's work. A not-so-good editor...well, they're probably even worse at typography.
I'm principally a writer, but also insist on having a final typographic say on my work. So I routinely rewrite to solve widow, orphan and line break problems.
Designers are often surprised at my interest (or that I even know about typography). But they love it when they see me fix a line break problem by changing the order of words or rewriting slightly.
So, designers, work with your writers!
Various comments
First, I am an Adobe PageMaker 6.5 user. Is PageMaker dead?
Second, I observed an error more egregious (in my mind) than widows or ophans in Figure 3 and Figure 6, namely that a comma appeared outside the quotation marks. In the United States, periods and commas ALWAYS go inside quotation marks. Always. Really.
Third--and this is really picky--the word nonbreaking is written solid, not hyphenated. I recommend an excellent little $7.95 reference book for such matters, "One Word, Two Words, Hyphenated?" by Mary Louise Gilman. (NCRA Press, www.verbatimreporters.com)
How short is too short?
The rule of thumb I've been taught to apply to "word widows" is that the last line should -- optimally -- be at least half the line length of the copy block. Worst case, two words will suffice. If it's really short, track the paragraph a bit tighter and lose the line altogether. (It does save a few pages over the span of a book, too.)
Anyone for subbing?
The widow-orphan techniques here have been included in XPress and InDesign for amateur DTP enthusiasts and their golf club newsletters, but they produce appalling typography that won't suit professional jobs. It's the same as cramming in extra lines in the last column of a story in to stop it running into overmatter. Widows, orphans, overmatter, undermatter... these are issues which are corrected by everyday subbing, not by fiddling around with tracking controls. If your car keeps hitting the curb, you don't need to install an automatic crash detection system - just learn to turn the steering wheel.