RE: [Groff] change spacing for .tc request

[Ted Harding]

On 10-May-03 Ralph Graulich wrote:
> what's the best and most compatible solution to change the character
> spacing for a .tc requested filler?
> 
> For example, I want to fill the remainder of a table cell with dots,
> so I define:
> 
> .ta 2.7cR
> .tc .
> Text <TAB>
> 
> and it gets printed as:
> 
> Text ......... (up to 2.7c)
> 
> I'd like to have a en-space inserted between each dot, so it gets
> optically more light-weight:
> 
> Text . . . . . . (up to 2.7c)

Hi Ralph.
One solution is to create your own filler character as a composite
using the '.char' request. For instance, in your code above,

.char \[sp.] \h'1n'.
.ta 2.7cR
.tc \[sp.]
Text <TAB>

which would result in each "." being preceded by a 1-en space
(though not followed by one, so you might need to fill in at the
right somehow).

Or you could try somethng more complicated:

.char \[sp.sp] \h'0.5n'.\h'0.5n'
.ta 2.7cR
.tc \[sp.sp]
Text <TAB>

which would both precede and follow "." with a 1/2-en space.

Try both of these (and other variants) with

Text<TAB>Text

to see how you like them!

Good luck.
Ted.


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Date: 10-May-03                                       Time: 15:29:51
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