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. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 26-Jul-06 Time: 22:11:27 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Groff mailing list Groff@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/groff