Orphan

Updated: 09/12/2023 by Computer Hope

An orphan may refer to any of the following:

Letter S vertically overlapping another letter S.

1. Alternatively called a widow, an orphan describes a paragraph of text having its last line on the next page. When writing any document or school paper, avoid this problem by watching where your paragraphs end.

Tips on preventing orphaned text

Below are some tips you can try if your document has orphaned text.

  • Increase or decrease the amount of text in the document.
  • Break up the text into more paragraphs.
  • Change the document's line spacing.
  • Adjust the document's margins.

2. With Novell Groupwise, an orphan refers to a deleted message that remains in the message database.

Orphan file, Orphan work, Word processor terms