widows

When a paragraph is split over two pages in paged media, the widows CSS property defines the minimum number of lines that must be left at the top of the second page. In typography, a widow is the last line of a paragraph appearing alone at the top of a new page. Setting the widows property allows the prevention of single-line widows.

For non-paged media, like screen, the widows CSS property has no effect.

/* <integer> values */
widows: 2;
widows: 3;
/* Global values */
widows: inherit;
widows: initial;
widows: unset;

Syntax

Values

<integer>

Denotes the minimum number of lines that can stay alone on the top of a new page when a paragraph is split. If the value is not positive, the declaration is invalid.

Formal syntax

<integer>

Example

CSS

div {
  background-color: #8cffa0;
  columns: 3;
  widows: 2;
}
p {
  background-color: #8ca0ff;
}
p:first-child {
  margin-top: 0;
}

HTML

<div>
  <p>This is the first paragraph containing some text.</p>
  <p>This is the second paragraph containing some more text than the first one. It is used to demonstrate how widows work.</p>
  <p>This is the third paragraph. It has a little bit more text than the first one.</p>
</div>

Result

Specifications

Browser Compatibility

See also

• orphans
• Paged Media