I was reminded yesterday - by experience and directly - that we're not all at the same place in our skills. While the following may be very basic for many of you, I just saw this error in a newsletter the other day.

Don't leave orphans! In publishing, this means that you shouldn't let your computer break the page or column in an bad place, leaving just a phrase, word or few words, or even a few lines on the next page. Unless there is substantial content, a reader shouldn't have to flip to read the end of the story.

The example I saw had a number of short, single paragraph announcements throughout. Often three lines would be on one page, two on the next. Bad idea!

If you're designing in Word and it's all continuous text, you can insert a page or column break (Insert > Break > choose which one you want) rather than hitting all the enters if you want. This also gives some added protection against creating a bigger mess if you go back and add things prior to the break.

Basic rule - If it doesn't make sense to read at a quick glance, you did something wrong!