Widows and orphans

[woody649]

I have a sense that most of the members of this site are seasoned professionals, whereas I'm an amateur who has been away from DTP for a couple of decades, and who is now finding his way back into it. And the way is fraught with obstacles.

The obstacle du jour is: What to do about widows and orphans. In fact, it's dealing with them that has spurred me to investigate newer/better DTP software (which I have touched on in other posts/threads). I have been doing some research, which was initiated by the realization that books I have on my desk allow both widows and orphans. That was a bit of a shock to me, because I remembered from days gone by that widows and orphans were to be zealously avoided.

So the question is: What do you all do about widows and orphans? What's more important to you, aligning the text blocks top and bottom on facing pages, or avoiding widows and orphans and possibly having the bottoms of facing pages misaligned?

Thanks.