Re: [Groff] ms macro and PO (left margin)

[Heinz-Jürgen Oertel]

Am Mittwoch, 7. Mai 2003 16:33 schrieb Robert D. Goulding:
> On Wed, 7 May 2003, Ralph Graulich wrote:
> > I am converting the documents needing rotated text (see other thread)
> > from mm to ms. Carefully changed the document's setup, concerning setting
> > the corresponding number registers. However I can't set the PO (left
> > margin) to zero or any other than the predefined value.
> >
> > For example:
> >
> > .nr LL 17c
> > .nr HM 2c
> > .nr FM 2c
> > .nr PS 9
> > .nr VS 9.8
> > .nr PO 0c
> > This is just some text for internal testing. Be prepared, as this text
> > ...
> >
> > produces the same left offset no matter what value is used for "PO".
> >
> > What am I doing wrong here?
>
> This is a bug in -ms which was discussed here a while ago; Werner (I
> think) provided a patch, but I guess it wasn't incorporated into the
> source.  But all you need to do, if you're setting the page-offset to X,
> is:
>
> .nr PO X
> .po X
>
> making sure you both set the -ms register and explicitly change the offset
> yourself.
>
> R.

Another issue - some variable values, like LL, PS and VS are used in the 
paragraph macros and are getting valid in the next paragraph. You should 
always specify where the text belongs to.
Changes of HM and FM are used at the next page setup.
This behavior is documented in groff_ms(7)
Write:

.nr LL 17c
.nr HM 2c
.nr FM 2c
.nr PS 9
.nr VS 9.8
.nr PO 0c
.po 0c
.LP
This is just some text for internal testing. Be prepared, as this text
has neither any special meaning nor making sense. You can read the whole
paragraph, but it will be pretty useless. Spend your precious time reading
something more interesting. It will be really boring, you have been
warned. In case you still want to read the whole text, you are welcome,
but I am sure you'll be pretty clueless about the deeper meaning of all
those words.
-----


-- 

with best regards / mit freundlichen Grüßen

   Heinz