Better documents with two new attributes



Product

To produce a nice document, you need to respect some typesetting rules and fundamentals. For example, the grammar, spelling, and structure of your document shows the quality of your text. One of these rules concerns the distribution of paragraphs and tables over multiple pages.

4D Write Pro offers you two options to manage paragraph distribution:

  • Avoid page break inside paragraphs or tables, and
  • Avoid widows and orphans for paragraphs or tables.

 

Let’s dig into more details.

Avoid page break inside paragraph or table

This option is useful when you don’t want a paragraph, several paragraphs or a table to break across two pages.

   New attribute

A new attribute is available: wk page break inside. The available values are wk avoid or wk auto.

WP SET ATTRIBUTE($range; wk page break inside; wk avoid)

Automatic page break

Avoid page break inside

blank

This option was already accessible via the contextual menu and the avoidPageBreakInsideEnabled standard action.

Avoid widows and orphans

   What are widows and orphans?

In typesetting, widows and orphans are the lines at the beginning or end of a paragraph which are left all by themselves at the top or bottom of a page. They can create a visual interruption in the flow of reading that breaks the reader’s focus. That’s why they should be avoided.

  • Widow: A paragraph-ending line that is displayed at the beginning of the following page.
  • Orphan: A paragraph-opening line that appears by itself at the bottom of a page.

 

  New attribute

With the WP SET ATTRIBUTES command, you have a new attribute: wk avoid widows and orphans. The available values for this attribute are wk true or wk false. 

When this attribute is set for a paragraph or a table, 4D Write Pro prevents this paragraph or table from having a single line separated onto another page.

WP SET ATTRIBUTE($range; wk avoid widows and orphans; wk true)

You can see the difference in the screenshots below:

Allow widows and orphans

blank

Avoid widows and orphans

blank

Again, this option was already accessible via the contextual menu and the widowAndOrphanControlEnabled standard action.

 

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Vanessa Talbot
• Product Owner •Vanessa Talbot joined 4D Program team in June, 2014. As a Product Owner, she is in charge of writing the user stories then translating it to functional specifications. Her role is also to make sure that the feature implementation delivered is meeting the customer need.Since her arrival, she has worked to define key features in 4D. She has worked on most of preemptive multi-threading new features and also on a very complex subject: the new architecture for engined application. Vanessa has a degree from Telecom Saint-Etienne. She began her career at the Criminal Research Institute as a developer for the audiovisual department. She has also worked in media and medical fields as expert in technical support, production as well as documenting new features.