Re: [css-text] Preventing typographic orphans

On 1/3/15, 3:47 PM, "Randy Edmunds" <redmunds@adobe.com> wrote:

>> In typography, orphans are lone words at the end of a line. However, in
>>CSS, the orphans property controls the minimum number of lines in a
>>block container that must be left at the bottom of a page, not the
>>minimum number of words at the end of a line. Is there anything planned
>>for typographic orphans? If not, why?
>> 
>> This must have been discussed before, but can't seem to find it, sorry.
>
>There has been talk of a `text-balance` property that takes a percentage
>value. The value determines the minimum length for the last line of a
>paragraph, compared to the average line length. The property defaults to
>auto which computes to 0% (the last line can be anywhere from 0-100% of
>the average line length). If the text-balance property computes to 100%,
>then all of the lines in the paragraph get balanced to give the last line
>full width.
>
>Randy

Right - search for ‘last line length’ rather than ‘orphans’ to find the
discussion. I think it’s probably a separate concern than balanced lines
[1], as you can fiddle with more things than line endings to achieve the
last line length you want. It might require something closer to multi-line
composition to correctly automate last line length, though.

Thanks,

Alan

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2014Oct/0256.html

Received on Sunday, 4 January 2015 00:03:27 UTC