Re: [Groff] pound sign and mom letters

[Peter Schaffter]

On Fri, Feb 20, 2004, MJ Ray wrote:
> 2. mom's DOCTYPE LETTER puts the header in backwards order (it outputs 
> date, to, from instead of from, to, date) so I'm using .rj and .nf 
> instead of the .FROM and .TO macros to force it. Is there a better 
> solution?

Citing the docs:

    "...mom makes no pretence of providing complete design
    flexibility in the matter of letters..."

:-)

IOW, mom doesn't currently provide a better solution to your
problem.

The order and placement of mom's letter headers follow a fairly
common convention for business correspondence (at least, common
in this neck of the woods), namely: date, top-right; addressee,
flush left; addresser, flush left.  For the moment, that's carved in
stone.

However, if I understand your requirements (but expressing them in
more general terms), what you'd like is:

    a) the freedom to input the various header fields in any order
       you like, and have mom output them in the same order

    b) the ability to override the default quad direction of any of
       those fields

b) would be easy enough to implement in such a way that all one
would have to do is put .LEFT or .RIGHT immediately after a header
field macro (DATE, TO, FROM) to change the default quad direction
for that bit of the header.

a) would require a bit of rethinking/rewriting of the way mom
handles letter headers, but if it would make things easier for you,
let me know and I'll get on it right away.

-- 
Peter Schaffter

Author of _The Schumann Proof_, appearing fall, 2004
(pub. RendezVous Press, Canada)