[xep-support] Orphans & Widows

[Douglas_Morrison at contractor.amat.com]

Hello William,

I agree with Alexander.

The intent of widow and orphan control is to prevent the last line of a 
paragraph appearing at the top of a page (a widow) or the first line of a 
paragraph appearing at the end of a page (an orphan). The presumption is 
that it is a multi-line paragraph. It is also more-or-less an aesthetic 
consideration. Keep-with-next (or previous) is generally more important: 
you really don't want a figure title to be on a different page than the 
figure, or a section heading to be separated from the section contents.

Furthemore, you (usually) don't care if a figure title is an orphan or a 
section heading is a widow.

This is speaking from what I would hope the specifications would produce, 
rather than a knowledge of what they actually say.

Regards, Doug  x2571

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Alexander Peshkov <peshkov at renderx.com>
Sent by: owner-xep-support at renderx.com
05/05/2004 14:05
Please respond to xep-support
 
        To:     "Schroeder, William" <xep-support at renderx.com>
        cc: 
        Subject:        Re[4]: [xep-support] Orphans & Widows
 


Hello William,

First of all I would like to note that XSL-FO specification is not very
explicit when describing scope of orphans/widows. It refers to
"number of line-areas in the first/last area generated by the formatting 
object"
but it is not clear that is the first area in this context.

We believe that first area produced by formatting object do not
include line areas produced by its descendants, that's why in your
first example below XEP can break page after section title.
In the situations like yours it is natural to use 
keep-with-next.within-page="always"
on the section title block instead of 'orphans'.

The same is for the second example - you expect that all line areas
generated by descendants of the topmost block will be taken into
account then its 'widows' property interpreted. Note however that
orphans/widows properties are inheritable and if your interpretation
will be used you won't have any breaks unless one of the nested blocks
is 7 lines long (orphans="2" (default) and widows="5").
Again, there is a simpler way to achieve desired effect - just set
keep-together.within-page="always" keep-with-pevious.within-page="always"
on the signature table instead of using 'widows'.

I believe both examples mentioned in your letter are typical usecases
for keep properties rather then for orphans/widows.

Best regards,
Alexander Peshkov                             mailto:peshkov at renderx.com
RenderX

--- snip ---
>> >> -----Original Message-----
>> >> From: Schroeder, William [mailto:SCHRO006 at onyx.dcri.duke.edu] 
>> >> Sent: 29 April 2004 15:46
>> >> To: 'xep-support at renderx.com'
>> >> Subject: [xep-support] Orphans & Widows
>> >> 
>> >> 
>> >> I'm a newbie xep-support subscriber and I'm trying to get widows &
>> orphans
>> >> attributes working.  I have created a report with signature lines at
>> the
>> >> end. Each signature line takes 3 rows, 1 for spacing, 1 for the 
line,
>> and
>> >> 1
>> >> for the name under the line.  The first signature line occurs at the
>> >> bottom
>> >> of a page with the rest on the next page. The fo is essentially a 
block
>> >> containing a 2 column table with an empty table-header and a 
table-body
>> >> containing the signature lines.  I reason that by setting the 
orphans
>> >> attribute to something greater than 3 that this should force the 
lone
>> >> signature line to the next page with the others.  I have not been 
able
>> to
>> >> get the signature line to budge.  I have tried numerous combinations 
&
>> >> permutations of orphans & widows at the level of the fo:block,
>> fo:table,
>> >> and
>> >> fo:table-body but nothing seems to work. Any ideas?
>> >> 
>> >> Bill Schroeder
>> >> 
>> >> -------------------


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