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davidfor · 01-20-2022, 05:08 AM

I'm not sure what you mean by "won't disappear". As you are talking about poetry, my guess is you are trying to to keep each verse together and not split them over a page break. If so, using 1 for widows and orphans would be the worst thing you could.

A "1" for widows and orphans means to allow a single line as either a widow or orphan. That will maximise the text on a screen. Using "2" means that you have to have at least two lines together in the paragraph at the end of the page or top of the next. Which means a three line paragraph that goes over the end of a page will always move to the next page, but a four line paragraph might have two on each page.

If you are trying to keep each verse together and you are using a paragraph for each verse with a br tag for the lines, then setting the widows and orphans to the one higher than half of the number of lines in the longest verse should work. But, I'd be lazy and just set it to the number of lines in the longest verse. I haven't tried it, but, it should work. Or at least it should in epubs for any reader that is based on the Adobe RMSDK, which the epub reader on a Kobo device is.

This won't work for kepubs. The renderer for kepubs does not do any widows and orphans calculations. So, nothing will work there. And, I expect a lot of other epub renders do the same thing.

If I have misunderstood what you are doing, then we need more information on what you are doing and what is not working. Sample code is always good and screenshots to show what it looks like will help.

Also, questions like this would be much better in the Workshop section of the forum. The real experts on creating ebooks hang out there. I know there has been discussion of how best to do poetry, but, it isn't my thing. The above is my guess based on my understanding of how widows and orphans work. Someone there will be able to tell you what the best thing to do is.

01-20-2022, 05:08 AM	#2
davidfor Grand Sorcerer Posts: 24,905 Karma: 47303824 Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Sydney, Australia Device: Kobo:Touch,Glo, AuraH2O, GloHD,AuraONE, ClaraHD, Libra H2O; tolinoepos	I'm not sure what you mean by "won't disappear". As you are talking about poetry, my guess is you are trying to to keep each verse together and not split them over a page break. If so, using 1 for widows and orphans would be the worst thing you could. A "1" for widows and orphans means to allow a single line as either a widow or orphan. That will maximise the text on a screen. Using "2" means that you have to have at least two lines together in the paragraph at the end of the page or top of the next. Which means a three line paragraph that goes over the end of a page will always move to the next page, but a four line paragraph might have two on each page. If you are trying to keep each verse together and you are using a paragraph for each verse with a br tag for the lines, then setting the widows and orphans to the one higher than half of the number of lines in the longest verse should work. But, I'd be lazy and just set it to the number of lines in the longest verse. I haven't tried it, but, it should work. Or at least it should in epubs for any reader that is based on the Adobe RMSDK, which the epub reader on a Kobo device is. This won't work for kepubs. The renderer for kepubs does not do any widows and orphans calculations. So, nothing will work there. And, I expect a lot of other epub renders do the same thing. If I have misunderstood what you are doing, then we need more information on what you are doing and what is not working. Sample code is always good and screenshots to show what it looks like will help. Also, questions like this would be much better in the Workshop section of the forum. The real experts on creating ebooks hang out there. I know there has been discussion of how best to do poetry, but, it isn't my thing. The above is my guess based on my understanding of how widows and orphans work. Someone there will be able to tell you what the best thing to do is.