Text re-adjusts after soft return line-break

[Catherine25616880np10]

I am trying to get rid of a runt in my paragraph by using a soft return to push words to the next line however the lines above the one I am adjusting will adjust and move themselves after I have soft returned. I would like one or two words to move to the next line but still keep the lines above how they are. 

[BobLevine · Accepted solution]

That is very poor practice but if you insist on doing it, you've been warned...turn on the single-line composer instead of the paragraph composer.

[Catherine25616880np10]

Hello, Thank you for your response! If this is poor practice, what do you suggest to get rid of runts, orphins etc.?

[Peter Spier]

A non-breaking space at the point you want the line break will probably work, and won't bite you later if you edit.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

If you mean on a running basis, there are many style adjustments that can minimize these stubs.

If you mean on a final, copy fitting basis, using nonbreaking spaces and slight text editing is more structurally sound, and won't cause problems as later changes are made. 

Using very small text spacing tweaks is a pro method as well. Grab the paragraph and change either tracking or text width by microscopic amounts to get lines to tuck in or fill out. 

[Catherine25616880np10]

Thank you all! This has been very helpful, I didn't realize I was going about this the wrong way

[Peter Spier]

You can also apply No Break to the last n characters of the paragraph as a GREP style to assure there is a minimum of n characters on the last line, but that won't let you control the break point in quite the same way.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

As Bob says, soft returns are to be avoided in InDesign. Use style adjustments instead. 

[John Mensinger]

https://nukefactory.com/tutorials/widows-orphans-and-runts/