Re: Adjusting column width dynamically to get rid of orphans and widows

[Thomas Widmann <thomas@complexli.com>]

On 25 June 2017 at 12:16, Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl> wrote:
> On 6/24/2017 4:48 PM, Thomas Widmann wrote:
>>
>> Lots of published dictionaries are full of orphans and widows because
>> they're so hard to avoid without a lot of manual intervention, which
>> is why I'm keen to explore any novel ways to avoid them.
>>
>> However, all ways I can think of requires typesetting the entries in
>> the last column multiple times, i.e.:
>>
>> repeat
>>    adjust parameters (column width, looseness, ...)
>>    typeset column
>> until the column doesn't generate orphan/widow
>>
>> Is this possible with ConTeXt/LuaTeX?
>
> maybe be more explicit with very large penalties helps
>
> \startdocument
>
> \showmakeup[penalty]
>
> [...]
>
> \stopdocument

Thanks, Hans, that's a very instructive bit of code, and I'm sure it
will be useful from time to time.  However, it doesn't really answer
my question: Is there a way in ConTeXt/LuaTeX to typeset a column
repeatedly until it fulfils certain criteria (such as not generating
an orphan or a widow)?

Perhaps it would be easier if I didn't think of it as a column, but
simply as a box?  The only problem I can see with that is that it
makes it awkward to handle the fact that long entries will often need
to run into the next column.

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