[xep-support] Orphans & widows at the line break level

Powell, Todd Todd.Powell at hq.doe.gov
Fri Feb 3 11:19:49 PST 2006


Yeah, trying to handle all the possibilities is tough.  We have other
experience with computational linguistics and are still amazed at the
abilities of the human mind :-)  We've had to leave the true effort on
the shoulders of the authors and editors, and only try to provide some
automated tools that look for very specific (and probably valid) places
for them to fix.  You don't want to overwhelm them with too many false
positives!

As a general rule, I'd place a non-breaking space before any word
starting with a number character, and in front of any dash (one of your
examples).  Also, we replace all hyphen characters with non-breaking
dashes, but that's because we don't allow hyphenation at line breaks in
our documents.

You could also go a little crazy like tagging "Terminator V" in a
<title> tag, and have a rule where those can't be split across lines.
Probably just as much effort as having the users put in the &nbsp;  And
even then, you'll get the title "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", and
want to split that up!

I wish you luck on this!

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-xep-support at renderx.com
[mailto:owner-xep-support at renderx.com] On Behalf Of Jose Maria Sanchez
de Ocana
Sent: Friday, February 03, 2006 1:56 PM
To: xep-support at renderx.com
Subject: Re: [xep-support] Orphans & widows at the line break level


Hmm... actually that was another BAD example! What about "Yesterday I
went to watch Terminator V" ? Jose

On 2/3/06, Jose Maria Sanchez de Ocana <jsandeo at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello, Todd
> Those were actually examples that don't cover all real cases. How 
> about "I was born in december 1st" ? I just don't want that "1st" to 
> be an orphan. Thanks,
> Jose
>
>
> On 2/3/06, Powell, Todd <Todd.Powell at hq.doe.gov> wrote:
> > Jose,
> >
> > We've developed some standard rules for our end users when it comes 
> > to knowing where to place non-breaking spaces, and one of the most 
> > commonly encountered is "place one before any number".  It would 
> > seem to me that this kind of a rule could be used in all the 
> > examples you gave.
> >
> > It doesn't handle the hanging "real" word problem, but at least it 
> > won't separate "January 3, 2005" onto two lines.
> >
> > HTH,
> > Todd
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-xep-support at renderx.com 
> > [mailto:owner-xep-support at renderx.com] On Behalf Of Jose Maria 
> > Sanchez de Ocana
> > Sent: Friday, February 03, 2006 12:33 PM
> > To: xep-support at renderx.com
> > Subject: Fwd: [xep-support] Orphans & widows at the line break level
> >
> >
> > I've thought about trying that, but after a first analysis of the 
> > problem (i.e. where in a string to replace blanks with non-breaking 
> > spaces), I've realised it's the typical problem that looks simple at

> > first glance but is actually pretty tricky... it's actually similar 
> > to hyphenating, but not quite the same. It is really more of an 
> > orphans/widows kind of problem, but at the line level.
> >
> > Thanks anyway,
> > JSO
> >
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: Broberg, Mats <mabr at flir.se>
> > Date: Feb 3, 2006 6:15 PM
> > Subject: RE: [xep-support] Orphans & widows at the line break level
> > To: xep-support at renderx.com
> >
> >
> > Jose,
> >
> > Wouldn't using a non-breaking space (U+00A0) when typing the text be

> > a possibility?
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Mats Broberg
> >
> > ________________________________
> >
> > From: owner-xep-support at renderx.com on behalf of Jose Maria Sanchez 
> > de Ocana
> > Sent: Fri 2006-02-03 17:20
> > To: xep-support at renderx.com
> > Subject: [xep-support] Orphans & widows at the line break level
> >
> >
> >
> > Hello,
> > I'd like to know if there's a way in XSL-FO/XEP to control orphans &

> > widows not only at the page break level, but also at the line break 
> > level. My problem is that, for certain texts, I'd like to prevent 
> > lines from breaking at words that are too short. For example, I have

> > the text: "Long Beach Road, 2" I wouldn't want this sort of text to 
> > be broken right before the "2", thus leaving a single character as 
> > an orphan in the block's last line. I'd either want the text to be 
> > stretched into a block with one line less, or to be broken leaving 
> > "Road, 2" on the last line. Likewise, I wouldn't want a text such as

> > "Madison Av. 1 - 2" to be broken right after the 1, leaving "- 2" on

> > the last line, and a lonely "1" as a widow at the end of the 
> > previous one.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > JSO
> >
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