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

[Thomas Widmann <thomas@complexli.com>]

On 20 June 2017 at 10:41, Henri Menke <henrimenke@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, 2017-06-20 at 09:22 +0100, Thomas Widmann wrote:
> >
> > 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.
>
> Have a look at \widowpenalty and \clubpenalty.  Also use margin kerning and font expansion.

\widowpenalty and \clubpenalty are almost useless in this context –
believe me, I've tried! (I'm typesetting on a grid, with a fixed
number of lines per page.) Which is why I'm looking for alternatives.

Margin kerning and font expansion are definitely options, but again,
my real query would be how to trigger them dynamically to avoid a
widow or an orphan.

Cheers,

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