The "Best of Both" option is designed to balance widow and orphan control with page balance. However, if your book contains complex formatting—such as frequent use of block quotes, verse, images, or footnotes—the algorithm might struggle to maintain balance while also respecting these various elements and eliminating widows and orphans. This can lead to rendering issues.
To address this, you might consider the following options:
Select a Layout Priority that Renders Well in the PDF Preview
If you notice issues with your preferred layout option, try using the "Balanced Page" layout, which focuses on keeping line distribution even across facing pages. Once you’ve selected this option, you can make manual adjustments to specific pages as needed to achieve the look you want.Stick with Your Preferred Layout and Adjust the Text Manually
If only a few chapters or sections are heavily formatted, it might be best to keep your preferred layout priority and then manually tweak the text. This approach works well when the problematic sections are limited and don’t require extensive reformatting. However if you’re relying heavily on paragraph formatting like callout boxes, lists, subheadings, block quotes, verse, etc, it may take significantly more trial and error than the previous option.
First, you’ll want to identify the page/chapter where the trouble is starting. Here’s how to do that:
Open your book in Atticus
Open the preview by clicking the icon at the bottom left of the right sidebar
Change the preview to Print by clicking the dropdown menu just on top of the previewer
Click on your Title Page and let the preview render
One by one, click through each of the pages and chapters in your book, letting the Previewer render the book each time.
* NOTE: Skip the Table of Contents. Do not click on this page while testing
Once you have identified the page/chapter that cannot render with your current layout priority:
Try removing any try (temporarily) removing any paragraph formatting like callout boxes, lists, subheadings, block quote or verse.
If It previews after that, try adding a page break in front of whatever element was removed and reapply formatting.
Continue previewing the book and making changes until the full book renders.