TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
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I'm the only technical writer in a small company, and my job
description includes not only writing but also editing and desktop
publishing.
Today I was having a rather lengthy discussion with our graphic
designer about orphans. We have five software manuals (100-300 pages
each) that are supposed to go to press today, but of course everyone
wanted a lot of last-minute changes. The graphic designer thinks that
orphans in the manual (one-word lines according to Chicago or .75" or
less lines according to our designer) are serious enough to keep the
manual from going to press. He thinks that we should do anything we can
to get rid of them, including very tight tracking (up to -20) or
rewriting the text.
Now I'd love to have manuals with no orphans in them, but as a
technical writer, I have to get documents out fast. I don't have time
to rewrite the text, I don't think that I should have to change the
text just to accommodate the design, and I'm not willing to compromise
the readability of the text by very tight tracking. I'm new to the
field (just graduated from college in April) and I'd like to know what
other writers out there do. Are orphans acceptable in manuals
considering the tight time frame? What do your companies do? Which
comes first: content or design?
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