Re: [Groff] Short Orphan Lines

[Andrew Piziali]

Ted, you wrote:

>   This would work fine -- but of course only for the above purpose
>   (preventing the first line of a paragraph being the last line on a
>   page).

Yes, I realized this after hit [Send] and sent a follow-up.

>   But unfortunately not for preventing the last line of a paragraph
>   being the first line on a page ...  As Robert Goulding just reminded
>   us, there was code for "widow control" (which is this problem) in
>   James Clark's original groff code; but I think it was "draft code"
>   and was never compiled into releases.

Interesting.  If that code implemented a need-the-last-N-lines-together-
on-a-page (.nl), we'd be all set.

>   I agree with you that "final formatting responsibility is shifted
>   from groff to the author".  However, this is not altogether to be
>   ruled out; quite often, a nasty bit of formatting is mended by
>   slightly editing the text.  For instance, I don't myself like the
>   last line of a paragraph (even when it is all on one page) being
>   just one short word; so I will re-word something somewhere so that
>   it gets pulled back to the previous line.  Or, I don't like "Dr
>   Zhivago" being split across two lines, so I will mend that too.

Both of these cases can also be handled with an unbreakable space.  For
example: "Dr.\ Zhivago ..."


-- 
        Andrew Piziali, <address@hidden>