In typesetting, a widow appears if the first line of a paragraph is appearing at the bottom of a page with the remainder appearing on the following page. If a word or the last line of a paragraph appears at the top of a page, with the rest of the paragraph appearing on the preceding page, it is referred to as an orphan. Movable metal type Typesetting involves the presentation of textual material in an aesthetic form on paper or some other media. ... 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. ...

Widows, in this sense, are usually considered unattractive typographically and should be suppressed. Typographic work Typography (from the Greek words typos = form and grapho = write) is the art and technique of selecting and arranging type styles, point sizes, line lengths, line leading, character spacing, and word spacing for typeset applications. ...

Some of the techniques for eliminating an unwanted widow include:

• forcing a page break early, producing a short page,
• adjusting the leading, (rhymes with "heading") the space between lines, or inter-paragraph spacing,
• adjusting the word spacing to produce 'tighter' or 'looser' paragraphs,
• rewriting the paragraph.

Many typesetters have a hard time remembering the difference between orphans and widows. An easy trick is to remember the saying: Widows have no future (the paragraph seems to disappear after the widow) and orphans have no past (vice versa.) In typography, leading (IPA , rhymes with heading) refers to the amount of added space between lines of type. ...

See also

• Orphan (typesetting)
• Typography

According to the online Oxford English Dictionary, it's the other way round - a widow is the last line of a paragraph, appearing alone at the top of a page; and an orphan is the first line of a paragraph, appearing alone at the bottom of a page. 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. ... Typographic work Typography (from the Greek words typos = form and grapho = write) is the art and technique of selecting and arranging type styles, point sizes, line lengths, line leading, character spacing, and word spacing for typeset applications. ...