Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
IMHO, most people will not like widows and orphans being used with a phone or Reader. So turn them off with a vale of 1.
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Can you cite a poll?
Again you are misusing the term. This word does not mean what you think it means.
Having maximum whitespace and doing nothing (widows and orphans =1) creates widows and orphans. A single line at the bottom of a page that's actually the start of a paragraph, or single word (or a line) at the top of a page, which might otherwise be empty. The setting was invented before ebooks so as this doesn't happen or can be controlled. A setting of 2 was thought to be a minimum for readability. A higher setting might be appropriate in some situations.
I know some people like to have the screen filled (see also TV screens, either 4:3 or 16:9 and movies can have nearly any aspect, so unless you want bits chopped off, the black bars are good), but other people prefer readability.
Perhaps there should be a GUI setting to override widows and orphan reduction, padding and margins so as to "fill the screen" like TVs have. But I think (without any meaningful poll) that most people haven't thought about it at all, or wouldn't like seeing single orphaned or widowed lines (but they don't because the default is 2 and most never edit ebooks).