Pagebreak, widows and orphans

[UncleIvor]

Do pagebreak, widows and orphan work on the epub screen?

[DaleDe]

They are supported features of ePub however, some specific devices may not honor them. My experience is that most do.

Dale

[HarryT]

Devices using the Adobe RMSDK (which is pretty much all dedicated eInk readers) certainly support widows and orphans. Whether tablet-based reading apps do will of course depend on the individual app.

[PeterT]

Of course, there is still a debate as to what the value of 0 means for widows and orphans.

[theducks]

Or that Widows and Orphans can cause some ODD looking results (RMSDK)
screen 1 early end
screen 2 1 or 2 paragraphs
screen 3 1 or 2 (unnecessarily split off) paragraphs (would have fit the previous screen

Some times this is because the code included whitespace paragraphs before the normal end/break (</body>)

[RbnJrg]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Devices using the Adobe RMSDK (which is pretty much all dedicated eInk readers) certainly support widows and orphans. Whether tablet-based reading apps do will of course depend on the individual app.

Now Adobe with the new release 4.0.3 doesn't support anymore "page-break-after: avoid", widows and orphans With the previous version (4.0.2) those properties were supported when ADE opened an epub2 ebook (surprisingly, not supported on epub3!) but now, these properties don't work with epub2 or epub3. So, if we want to use them, we need to work with the old versions ADE 3.0 or ADE 4.0.2.

[Notjohn]

What's wrong with widows and orphans? Anyone who reads e-books is accustomed to them, and most people don't know there ever was a prohibition against them. To be sure, in a print edition, I will shorten a paragraph if it results in one or two words being marooned at the top of the next page, or even a couple of lines if it's the end of a chapter. But in an e-book, let her flow!

[RbnJrg]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

What's wrong with widows and orphans? Anyone who reads e-books is accustomed to them, and most people don't know there ever was a prohibition against them. To be sure, in a print edition, I will shorten a paragraph if it results in one or two words being marooned at the top of the next page, or even a couple of lines if it's the end of a chapter. But in an e-book, let her flow!

A matter of taste, suppose Personally, I don't like orphans and widows and do like titlles (h1, h2, etc. tags) in the same "page" with the following paragraph (or part of it). So I use in my personal ebooks the properties "page-break-after: avoid" (with <h> tags) and "orphans: 2" and "widows:1" with <p> tags. But the new ADE seems to think like you

[Notjohn]

Well, you could always start a new file (or use a manual page break) to force every sub-head to appear at the top of a page. Personally, I'd rather see it at the bottom of the previous page, if so be it.

Again, I'd treat a print edition differently.

[dgatwood]

Caveat: page-break-*:avoid is poorly supported by most readers and browsers, and rarely works as you might expect.

The modes where you force a break are widely supported. Avoiding a break rarely works.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

What's wrong with widows and orphans? Anyone who reads e-books is accustomed to them, and most people don't know there ever was a prohibition against them. To be sure, in a print edition, I will shorten a paragraph if it results in one or two words being marooned at the top of the next page, or even a couple of lines if it's the end of a chapter. But in an e-book, let her flow!

I find the uneven page endings to not be nice. I prefer even page lengths.

[Notjohn]

In an e-book?

How do you even notice?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

In an e-book?

How do you even notice?

Very easily. It (to me) just looks odd if there is space at the bottom of the screen and it is not a section break, a new chapter/flow, or a graphic that doesn't fit in the space left.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

In an e-book?

How do you even notice?

Noticing the first line of a paragraph in isolation at the bottom of a page, or the last line of a paragraph in isolation at the top of a page, is just as noticeable in an ebook as it is in a paper book. There are reasons why this is considered poor typographical practice, and those reasons apply just as much to an ebook as to a paper book.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Noticing the first line of a paragraph in isolation at the bottom of a page, or the last line of a paragraph in isolation at the top of a page, is just as noticeable in an ebook as it is in a paper book. There are reasons why this is considered poor typographical practice, and those reasons apply just as much to an ebook as to a paper book.

Personally, I don't find that a bother. In a pBook, there is control over the line spacing and other typography so that page doesn't have such noticeable gaps at the bottom of the page.