Re: [Groff] horizontal trap

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi Dave,

> I don't want groff to handle these [long] lines; the exact way each
> such line should be handled depends on a number of factors and really
> requires manual intervention.  But I do want groff to alert me to such
> cases, so that I know where to find them without having to flip
> through a couple hundred pages of output.

Could you make use of \k to record the position of the end of each line?
There's also \n[hp] that, like \k, is the input position, and \n[.k]
that's the output.  The difference can be seen when \c is used to
continue the line in no-fill mode.  Also, you'll need to add on any page
offset or indent.

    $ cat horz.tr
    .pl 6
    .de p
    .tm x=\\nx
    ..
    .nf
    foo\kx
    .p
    bar xyzzy\kx
    .p
    bar \c
    xyzzy\kx
    .p
    .po 4
    bar xyzzy\kx
    .p
    .in 4
    bar xyzzy\kx
    .p
    $
    $ nroff horz.tr
    x=72
    x=216
    x=120
    x=216
    x=216
    foo
    bar xyzzy
    bar xyzzy
        bar xyzzy
            bar xyzzy

    $

Could \k be used with a macro after each line to check for overflow?

Otherwise, if there's normally a clear right margin then I'd fall back
on scanning each page mechanically for anything that blots it, e.g. each
PostScript page to an image, cut that rectangle, expect it to be all
white pixels.

Cheers, Ralph.