What are widows and orphans in typography?
Widows and orphans are lonely words or lines left at the end or start of a paragraph, column or page, which look awkward.
In typesetting, a widow or orphan is a short leftover piece of text stranded away from the rest. A common example is a single word sitting alone on the last line of a paragraph or headline. Another is one line of a paragraph left at the bottom or top of a column or page. Designers fix them by rewording, adjusting spacing or adding manual line breaks. On responsive websites, line breaks shift by screen size, so perfect control is not always possible.
Why it matters for your business: Cleaning up stranded words in headlines and print pieces makes your materials look carefully finished.
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