CSS orphans property

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The orphans property is used to specify the minimum number of lines of a block-level container that can be left at the bottom of a page or column.

An orphan is the first line of a paragraph that appears alone at the bottom of a page and the paragraph continues on a following page.

The orphans property is commonly used with the @media rule for specifying the number of orphans which are allowed at the end of a page. It can also be used in multi-column layouts for web pages and digital documents. In this case, it will specify the number of lines which are allowed at the end of a column.

The orphans property has a sister property: the widows, which specifies the number of lines that come at the beginning of the following page/column.

Initial Value	2
Applies to	Block container elements.
Inherited	No.
Animatable	No.
Version	CSS2
DOM Syntax	object.style.orphans = "2";

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Syntax

orphans: <integer> | initial | inherit;

Example of the orphans property:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Title of the document</title>
    <style>
      body {
        background-color: #eee;
        color: #000;
        font-size: 1em;
        font-family: Roboto, Helvetica, sans-serif;
      }
      hr {
        margin: 50px 0;
      }
      .example {
        margin: 30px auto;
        width: 800px;
      }
      .text {
        padding: 20px;
        background-color: #fff;
        -moz-columns: 10em 3;
        -webkit-columns: 10em 3;
        columns: 10em 3;
        -webkit-column-gap: 2em;
        -moz-column-gap: 2em;
        column-gap: 2em;
        text-align: justify;
      }
      .text p {
        orphans: 4;
      }
    </style>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h2>Orphans property example</h2>
    <div class="example">
      <div class="text">
        <p>
          Lorem Ipsum is dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum. Lorem Ipsum is dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry.
        </p>
        <p>
          <span style="color: #8ebf42; font-weight: bold">Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry.Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.</span>
        </p>
        <p>
          Lorem Ipsum is dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged.
        </p>
        <p>
          Lorem Ipsum is dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
        </p>
        <p>
          Lorem Ipsum is dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged.
        </p>
      </div>
    </div>
  </body>
</html>

Try it Yourself »

In the given example, four lines from the paragraph highlighted in green are left at the end of the first column.

Values

Value	Description
<integer>	Specifies the number of lines that can be left at the end of a page or column. Negative values are invalid.
initial	Makes the property use its default value.
inherit	Inherits the property from its parents element.