[Groff] "zero height" text

[Ted Harding]

Hi Folks,

I'm wondering if anyone has an idea of how to persuade
groff (specifically troff) that something has zero height.

If you use \Z'anything' then "anything" is considered to have
zero width, but \Z'anything' still has the hieight of "anything",
in other words it is effectively equivalent to

  anything\h'-\w'anything'u'

The reason I'm looking for this is that I want to displace text
vertically within table entries, but without changing the spacing
from one line to the next, e.g.

.T&
r c s s.
\v'2n'Complete\v'-2n'#Title
\v'1n'Data#_#_#_
.T&
r c c c.
Group#A#B#C
.T&
r n n n.

which has the unwanted result that the vertical heights, and
displacements, of "Complete" and "Data" cause undue separation
between the "Title", the rules "_#_#_", and the headers "A#B#C"

What I want to achieve is exactly the vertical spacing that
would be achieved with

.T&
r c s s.
##Title
##_#_#_
.T&
r c c c.
Group#A#B#C
.T&
r n n n.

bur at the same time tuck in a vertically compact "Complete"
above "Data" above "Group" at the left. If I could tell troff that
these had zero height, then this would be achieved!

With thanks for any suggestions,
Ted.


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E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <address@hidden>
Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 167 1972
Date: 10-Dec-03                                       Time: 16:04:07
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