Hyphenation / widow and orphan control

Hyphenation breaks a word at a valid language-specific point so a line can fit without a huge gap or a rough rag. Widow and orphan control keeps a paragraph's final line from landing alone at the top of a page or column, and its first line from being left alone at the bottom. Together they manage the awkward breaks around text edges. The old newsroom mnemonic still works: an orphan has no past, a widow has no future.

Use automatic hyphenation for narrow columns and justified copy, with the document language declared so the breaks follow the right dictionary. Every page tool already ships the controls: Microsoft Word hides Widow/Orphan Control under Paragraph, Line and Page Breaks, and InDesign puts Keep Lines Together in the Keep Options dialog. Use widow and orphan controls in print, PDF, columns, and other paginated layouts. For short web headings, 'text-wrap: balance' and a non-breaking space between the final words address the more common stranded-word problem.

Gotcha: a single word alone on the last line is often called a widow, but in strict typesetting it is a runt. Also, CSS 'widows' and 'orphans' matter at fragmentation boundaries, not ordinary continuous scrolling. Do not insert soft hyphens everywhere by hand; copied text, search, and later width changes all make them costly to maintain.