Re: [Groff] Line length and page offset in MS

[Ted Harding]

On 26-Jul-06 Robert Goulding wrote:
> On Jul 26, 2006, at 11:23 AM, Ulf Bro wrote:
> 
>> Hi,
>>
>> With Groff 1.18.1 I seem to not be able to set line length
>> and page offset with the .PO and .LL commands.  Whatever I
>> set in the input file the document produces a neat output
>> file with something like 1 inch margin.  Am I doing
>> something wrong.  I have SuSE Linux 10.1.
>>
>> Ulf
> 
> This was a bug in older versions of the groff ms macros.
> I can't remember when it was fixed - but it is certainly fixed
> in the current version.  Either upgrade, or use the .po request
> as well as the PO register.
> 
> Robert

I'm not sure it should be dismissed as a bug. That was certainly
the behaviour of other versions of troff in the older days (e.g.
I remember it from sqtroff in the 1980s), and it may well go back
to Unix troff.

The point is that (in versions where this behaviour occurs), when
the first page is initialised (ms macros having been read in
before anything happens), the page number \n[PO] register is
initialised to the value of \n[.o] and the line length \n[LL]
(if not already defined) is intialised to 6i. These are then
saved to "backup" registers.

Then, every time a new page occurs, \n[PO] is reset from the
backup register; likewise, whenever a new paragraph occurs,
\n[LL] is similarly reset.

Hence the work-round which Robert suggests: if you want
non-default values of \n[PO] and \n[LL], you do (e.g.)

.po 3c \"instead of default 1i
.nr PO 3c \"or .nr PO \n[.o]
.ll 12c \"instead of default 6i
.nr LL \n[.l]

(I have never thought twice about this -- at least not for
a very long time -- since I got into the habit of it with
sqtroff back in 1984).

best wisyhes,
Ted.

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Date: 26-Jul-06                                       Time: 22:11:27
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