Re: [Groff] bad QE in -ms

[Carsten Kunze]

Doug McIlroy <address@hidden> wrote:

> The -ms macro QE typically draws a misleading diagnostic, "unbalanced QE".
> This breaks old documents that expect QP-QE (quoted paragraph) to narrow
> the text and then restore it. The groff QE does not restore.

I had been wrong here.  For the simple tests I've done groff works correctly
except that the paragraph distance (\n[PD]) is not inserted before .QS and
after .QE.

.QP is not finished with .QE but with any other paragraph macro instead
(.KE did work too).  .QP should be used if there is just one paragraph
to be quoted.

If the quoted paragraph should be divided further, then the pair .QS/.QE
is used instead of .QP.  Paragraphs inside .QS/.QE are started with
.LP.  (Compare e.g. Gehani/Lally "Document Formatting and Typesetting
on the UNIX System" Volume II, First Edition, page 114-115.)

Tests with

<some text>
.QP
<quoted text>
.LP
<some text>

and

<some text>
.QS
<quoted text>
.LP
<another quoted paragraph>
.QE
<some text>

also

<some text>
.KF
I didn't test .PS here but this should not make the difference.
The quote alone is on top of the next page and the body text
is not disturbed.
.QP
<some text>
.KE
<some text>

look qood except the missing paragraph distance before .QS
and after .QE.

So according to the specification it is correct that groff outputs
a warning (although a misleading one) if the existing document
uses .QP/.QE pairs.  I'd prefer to only correct the warning
message text and the paragraph spacing.

Carsten