Easy question - how to prevent short lines

[ChoccieMuffin]

I'm sure this is an easy one for someone to answer.

I have a paragraph that has a single short word on the end, and that short word pops onto the last line of the paragraph. I have a sneaky suspicion there's an attribute you can assign to limit the length of the last line so that the word before that last one also pops onto the last line, but I can't figure out what that setting would be.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

[forfear]

In the stylesheet, select the p or paragraph tag. open the properties for the 'p' tag.

See the screenshot.

Snap2.png

[ChoccieMuffin]

Hi.

I know about widows and orphans (fortunately my DTP background hasn't been a complete waste of time!) but I'm thinking more of a paragraph in the middle of a page.

Here is an example pretend paragraph in a narrow
column which sits happily in the middle of a page but
the last word falls in an awkward place and I don't like
it.

In the above example, I would like to find some kind of setting to prevent "it" from being on the last line on its own, so that instead the last line would say "like it." which is more aesthetically pleasing. I know I could shove in a Shift-Return before "like" but that's a massive UGH which would only work if I'm only ever going to use that topic with that specific font and that specific column width, so I'm not going to do that.

Tell me to go away and that I'm being too fussy if such a setting doesn't exist. I just have a vague feeling that it does.

[Nita Beck]

A search for "short lines" in the Flare 6.1 help system yielded a hit to "Setting Short Line Elimination," and a quick read shows that it's exactly the info you're looking for.

In your stylesheet, you'll need to mess around with the various "mc-short-line" properties (e.g., mc-short-line, mc-short-line-method, mc-short-line-loosen-maximum, and so forth). On the Properties dialog (accessible in Simplified View), there's a Short Line tab where you can set them. If you prefer to work in Advanced View, then look in the Unclassified property group to find these properties.

And, no, you're not being too fussy!