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All Alone and Misunderstood: Widows, Orphans, Runts, and Rivers

You've finally found the perfect content creation specialist. She's really something special. It doesn't matter the task you give to her, she creates superior content each and every time. More importantly, she's all about open communication and making sure that your needs are being met. But...there's always a but, right? There are a few parts of the content creation process that she's not familiar with -- widows, orphans, runts, and rivers.

Importance of Fixing Widows, Orphans, Runts, and Rivers

Here, in just a second, you'll be reading the definitions of the above mentioned composition aspects that you'll want to avoid within your marketing and informational pieces of marketing -- paper or digital -- that you share with your customers, vendors, distributors, suppliers, and consumers as a whole. Any type of marketing needs to look professional. After all, it is your company's brand that's on the line. The more professional your marketing looks, the more respected you will become in the eyes of consumers.

Definitions

Widow: A widow occurs when the last line of a paragraph is not able to fit at the bottom of a page or column. Instead, it sits at the top of the next page, looking out of place.

Orphan: An orphan is the exact opposite of a widow. It's when the first line of a paragraph sits at the bottom of a page by itself.

Runt: A runt can occur anywhere throughout a page or column, and it's when the last line found in a paragraph ends with a single word; this often happens with hyphenated words.

Rivers: A noticeable crack or line that runs through a paragraph, most commonly an issue after adjusting the tracking in a sentence.

Any graphic design specialist can help you recognize widows, orphans, runts, and rivers, but it's important to understand that these discrepancies are format-based, meaning that they will change from one format to another. Keeping this in mind, for each unique marketing format that you're using, the widows, orphans, runts, and rivers will need to be appropriately corrected.

What is Tracking?

Tracking is a way to fix widows, orphans, and runts. It involves highlighting a sentence or paragraph as a whole and adjusting the spacing between letters that form words, sentences, and paragraphs. It's imperative to start at the beginning of the content and and fix these composition issues (widows, orphans, and runts ) one by one. As one gets fixed, this could fix the rest of the issues, or it might create more, because with each fix, the remaining content will be affected. This is why a person should never flip back and forth from the beginning of their content to the end when fixing widows, orphans, and runts.

To make sure rivers don't occur, appropriate hyphenation settings need to be made along with correct hyphenation adjustments. If rivers still occur, a light touch of tracking adjustments may fix the problem.

Leave a Lasting Effect

The purpose of editing your content and correcting these composition errors is to ensure that your marketing leaves a positive, lasting effect. Your customers may not understand what widows and orphans are, but when they read through your content, it's essential that they not be distracted by these errors. When they can easily digest the content you present to them, the more effective your marketing endeavors will be.



InDesign Type: Professional Typography with Adobe InDesign
by Nigel French

REVIEW
Typography is the foundation of graphic design, and the most effective way to be a better designer is to understand type and use it confidently and creatively. This fully updated third edition is a comprehensive guide to creating professional type with Adobe InDesign. It covers micro and macro typography concepts, from understanding the nuance of a single spacing width to efficiently creating long and complex documents. Packed with visual examples, InDesign expert and acclaimed design instructor Nigel French shows not just how to use InDesign's extensive type features, but why certain approaches are preferable to others, and how to avoid common mistakes. Whether you're creating a single-page flyer or a thousand-page catalog, whether your documents will be printed or viewed on screen, InDesign Type is an invaluable resource for getting the most out of InDesign's typographic toolset.

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Eco-friendly promotional products are good for the environment and good for getting your message across to your target audience.

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Promotional items that endorse your business are great items to give away at tradeshows. They offer endless opportunities to get your message across to new audiences.

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Show employee appreciation and build company morale. Items such as flash drives, picture frames, desk accessories and computer mice make great employee gifts.

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View our newest promotional products! We are constantly adding new items to our 300,000+ inventory to give you fresh and up-to-date choices every day.

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Promotional Products

We carry promotional items such as eco-friendly gifts, awards, corporate gifts, new products and tradeshow items.

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Our business card program streamlines your order process yet gives you complete control over your content. Letterhead, envelopes and pocket cards too!

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We carry holiday and occasion cards, moving announcements, thank you notes and more. Customize your cards with logo imprints and other options!

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We print company phone pads, note pads and forms in various sizes. Personalize them with your company logo, names and contact information.

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Full color announcements and programs for fundraisers, trade shows, banquets and agendas. We also foil stamp, emboss and die cut.

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We print full color single to multi-sheet newsletters, product sheets, tri-folds, rack cards, handouts and promotional literature.

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We print items such as business stationary, brochures, occasion cards, memos & notepads, programs and announcements.

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Tips & Tricks

Design and tech tips to make designing your job a little easier, marketing tips to assist your advertising efforts and print tips for faster, less expensive buying.

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Pitch books and investment books help you communicate your message with PowerPoint presentations, graphs, and charts. Custom binding and tabs available.

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We can print 1-5000+ copies of your training, safety and operational manuals and technical documents. Full color, B&W, binding, inserts, index tabs, even lamination.

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Our high-speed, high quality B&W laser printers produce crisp, clean copies of legal documents, RFP's, variable data, digital output of files, manuals and more.

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Our high-quality digital color presses turn out beautiful invitations, flyers, brochures, newsletters, rack cards, coupons and more. We can also print large format prints and maps.

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We print B&W and color copies of presentations, product sheets, manuals, newletters, brochures, postcards and more. We also do archival scanning.

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We print oversized, digital prints of well-logs, operational flow charts and pipe line maps. Turn your maps and prints into digital files for emailing and archiving.

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Full color, affordable, retractable banners make great trade shows displays, point of purchase signage, directional signage and outdoor vinyl banners.

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We scan large format documents such as well-logs, engineering plans and maps to digital files. Your PDF digital scans can be easily archived to CD.

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Our digitally printed posters and prints are exceptional, with crisp, vibrant colors and photographic quality. Custom stock, mounting and laminating available.

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Catch people's attention with color signage! We produce banners stands, pop up and hanging displays, full color table covers and tabletop displays.

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We print event signage, maps, banners, well-logs, posters, prints and more. We also do oversize scanning.

Eco Friendly Tradeshows Corporate Gifts New Products Awards ? Promotional Products Promotional Products Business Stationery Occasion Cards Memos & Notepads Programs & Announcements Brochures ? Offset Printing Offset Printing Tips & Tricks Tutorials Printing Terms Templates FAQ's ? Tips & Tricks Tips & Tricks Presentations Manuals Black and White Copies Archiving Color Copies ? Digital Printing Digital Printing Maps & Prints Banners Oversize Scans Posters Event Signage ? Large Format Printing Large Format Printing Send A File Forms Factory My Jobs Place Order Request Estimate