It could be a problem of too many paragraphs formatted as "Keep with next,"
but it's also possible the document is just corrupt. See
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/CorruptDoc.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
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"Mary" wrote in message
...
I forgot to say that I'm using Word 2003 on Windows XP. To add to the
mystery, if I copy text from one of our templates where the widow/orphan
issue is apparent into a new document based on Normal.dot and keep the
source formatting, the text behaves as it should, i.e., no widows/orphans.
Can there be something in the page layout overriding the paragraph
formatting defined in the styles? This issue happens not just to
paragraphs
based on the Normal style but also with some of the heading styles.
Fortunately, we rarely use headings that run to more than one line, so
that
is not such a big issue.

"Mary" wrote in message
...
Since our company upgraded to Word 2003, widow/orphan control does not
work with our templates. I'm not sure if this is a Word issue or a
conflict with our customized styles. Our template use a modified version
of the Normal style (Arial 11pt, left aligned, line spacing single,
indents 0", spacing after 6pt). Widow/orphan conrol is on but sometimes
a
single line is left lonely at bottom or top of page. Why is this?

If I paste similar text into a document based on Word's default
Normal.dot, using the default Normal style in that template, there are
no
widow/orphans. If I now modify that style to include 6pt after, there
are
still no widow/orphan issues.