I'm using memoir for typesetting a novel and the nowidow package to control widows, running with lualatex. To prevent widows the nowidow package will leave empty lines at the end of the page, but I need to force the verso and recto pages to stop on the same line so that the typeblock is the same height across the spread or the facing pages. Different spreads can have different typeblock heights, so long as the typeblock height is uniform within a spread on the facing pages.
In case it is relevant, I have set \parskip to 0 with no glue (plus and minus both set to 0) because I want paragraph spacing to look uniform and the nowidow package seemed to stretch paragraph spacing by quite a bit.
I found a similar question but it's a few years old and the answer links to a solution that appears pretty complex (Avoiding widows while keeping text height even across two-page spread). Is there a simpler way to do this?
I'm new to latex and typesetting so I apologize in advance for any ignorance on my part.
\loosenessto increase or decrease the length of a paragraph by a line. This question might be helpful: Paragraph callback to help with widows/orphans hand tuning. Although that question is directed at lualatex,\loosenesscan be used as well with pdflatex. – barbara beeton Aug 06 '19 at 21:28