Adjusting column width dynamically to get rid of orphans and widows

[Thomas Widmann <thomas@complexli.com>]

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Hello,

I recently started experimenting with using ConTeXt (mkiv) for dictionary
typesetting. It's a much more attractive option than plain TeX or LaTeX
because of the support for typesetting on a grid.

However, grid typesetting can easily result in a large number of orphans
and widows, which really doesn't look good in a dictionary.

In an ideal world, I'd want to alter the column width slightly to prevent
them (because most dictionaries aren't justified, this wouldn't be very
noticeable).

Would it be possible to use LuaTeX to achieve this?  I.e., could one write
some code that gets triggered by orphans and widows and then alters the
current column width slightly until the problem disappears?  Has somebody
already done this?  Or have the relevant TeX internals not been Luafied yet?

I'd also be interested in other ways to solve this issue – for instance
changing the looseness dynamically instead of the column width.

Thanks a lot,

Thomas
--
Thomas Widmann
Director
Complexli Limited
+44 789 444 3009

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