Re: [Groff] figurate text in groff and TeX

[carsten . kunze]

Hello Doug,

> Examples of figurate text appear in Knuth's paper on
> the placement of line breaks. How would the changing indent
> and length parameters be expressed in TeX?

this is in general described in the TeXbook on page 101 for the \parshape 
command.
There one can set \parshape=n i1 l1 i2 l2 ... where n is the number of lines 
for the shape, i1 is the first line indent, l1 is the first line length and so 
on.

On page 315 exercise 14.18. there is an example for automatic calculating the 
shape of a triangle using \parshape where the text is to input at the end of 
the second last line:

\setbox1=\hbox{I}
\setbox0=\vbox{\parshape=11 -0\x0\x -1\x2\x -2\x4\x -3\x6\x
   -4\x8\x -5\x10\x -6\x12\x -7\x14\x -8\x16\x -9\x18\x -10\x20\x
  \ifdim \x>2em \rightskip=-\wd1
  \else \frenchspacing \rightskip=-\wd1 plus1pt minus1pt
   \leftskip=0pt plus 1pt minus1pt \fi
  \parfillskip=0pt \tolerance=1000 \noindent I turn, ... hand.}
\centerline{\hbox to \wd1{\box0\hss}}

--Carsten