widows

Summary

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.

Initial value	`2`
Applies to	block container elements
Inherited	yes
Media	visual, paged
Computed value	as specified
Animatable	no
Canonical order	the unique non-ambiguous order defined by the formal grammar

Syntax

/* <integer> values */
widows: 2;
widows: 3;

/* Global values */
widows: inherit;
widows: initial;
widows: unset;

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

p {
  widows: 3;
}

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
CSS Fragmentation Module Level 3 The definition of 'widows' in that specification.	Candidate Recommendation	Extends `widows` to apply to any type of fragment, like pages, regions or columns.
CSS Multi-column Layout Module The definition of 'widows' in that specification.	Candidate Recommendation	Recommend to consider `widows` in relation with columns
CSS Level 2 (Revision 1) The definition of 'widows' in that specification.	Recommendation	Initial definition

Feature	Chrome	Firefox (Gecko)	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari (WebKit)
Basic support	25	No support	8	9.2	No support

Feature	Android	Firefox Mobile (Gecko)	IE Phone	Opera Mobile	Safari Mobile
Basic support	No support	No support	?	?	No support