Alignment adjustments can help avoid two major design problems:
widows and orphans. A widow is an unacceptably short line of type
(often just a single word) at the end of a paragraph. The white space that
follows the widow looks unplanned and unnecessary. Conse quently,
most designers try to eliminate widows. An orphan is a partial line (end
of a paragraph) that appears at the top of a column or page. Both widows
and orphans can be quickly eliminated by a little tracking or rewording,
or even a slight bit of editing.
Some desktop publishing programs have their own built-in dam-
age control. Damage in this case refers to widows and orphans. Adobe
PageMaker, for example, has menu options for “Widow control” and
“Orphan control.”Typographic Special Effects
Most desktop publishing programs are loaded with unique typo-
graphic features called special effects. Like photos and illustrations, spe-
cial effects can break up text-heavy layouts to enliven even the blandest
of pages. Special effects are often used to spruce up headlines and pull
quotes, but they can also add emphasis to certain letters or words within
the body of an article. Better yet, unlike journalists of old, today's design-
ers can view and alter their desired special effects on computers before
the publications go to print.
The most commonly used special effects thicken or transform the
appearance of the letters. In the last chapter we mentioned an effect(^360) PRODUCING THE NEWS
Dateline
UNITED STATES, 1970–1990—A rev-
olution in newspaper production began
when the computer began replacing
type writers in newsrooms in the 1970s.
The television-like screen sitting
atop a keyboard allowed reporters to
type, edit and store their stories in a
central file. From another computer,
the editor could retrieve the story, edit
it and send it to the typesetter.
By the early 1980s, pagination pro-
grams and photocomposition machines
made it possible to set copy in type on
photographic film and send the nega-
tives directly to the plate maker, thus
eliminating the need to paste copy onto
page layouts by hand.
Wire service stories could be called
up, edited and placed directly on the
page. By the mid-1980s, photos were
being placed directly on the page either
from the wire or from scanned photos.
Color graphics soon followed.
Newsrooms today are completely
computerized. From the time a story
is composed at the keyboard until it
comes off the press on the page, it is
processed electronically. In addition to
interviewing and writing skills, report-
ers must have editing and pagination
skills. Editors must be able to solve
computer problems as well as spot
misspellings and grammatical er rors.
Photographers work with digital cam-
eras, crop photos on screen and write
cutlines at the keyboard.
widow
an unacceptably short line of
type (often just one word) at
the end of a paragraph
orphan
a partial line of type (the end
of a paragraph) that appears
at the top of a page or column