In typesetting, widows and orphans are lines of text that dangle at the beginning and at the end of a block of text, either at the head or at the foot of a page or of a column of text. Definitions Widow A paragraph-ending line that falls at the beginning of the following page or column, thus separated from the rest of the text. Mnemonically, a widow is "alone at the top" (of the family tree but, in this case, of the page). Orphan A paragraph-opening line that appears by itself at the bottom of a page or column, thus separated from the rest of the text. Mnemonically, an orphan is "alone at the bottom" (of the family tree but, in this case, of the page). Alternately, a word, part of a word, or very short line that appears by itself at the end of a paragraph. Mnemonically still "alone at the bottom", just this time at the bottom of a paragraph. Orphans of this type give the impression of too much white space between paragraphs. Guidelines Regarding page design and the layout of the text, the 15th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style (2003) indicates that an edited manuscript should have neither widows nor orphans, even if their elimination leaves blank space at the bottom of the page or of the column of text. The 16th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style (2011) proposes the acceptability that the layout of some pages can conclude with the first line of a new paragraph at the foot of the page. The techniques for eliminating widows include: Forcing a page break early, producing a shorter page; Adjusting the leading, the space between lines of text; Adjusting the spacing between words to produce tighter or looser paragraphs; Adjusting the hyphenation within the paragraph; Adjusting the margins of the page; Subtle scaling of the page without distorting the letters; Rewriting a portion of the paragraph; Reduce the letter-spacing (tracking) of the words; Adding a pull quote to the text (usual in magazines); and Adding a floating block (figure) to the text, or resizing an existing figure. An orphan is more easily deleted, either by inserting a blank line or by forcing a page break to push the orphan line onto the next page, to be part of the paragraph to which the orphan belongs. Similarly, an orphan word at the end of