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[Groff] Widow control: simple cases at least are working


From: Larry Kollar
Subject: [Groff] Widow control: simple cases at least are working
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2004 16:41:47 -0500

I compiled last night's CVS with -DWIDOW_CONTROL and after studying the source (and making one patch to get it to compile) it works with my test document. Here's a brief description of the commands enabled:

        .wdc [n]
                Set widow control. No argument, or a non-zero
                argument, enables widow control; zero disables it.
                No corresponding number register that I could find.

        .fpl
                Flush pending lines if widow control is enabled.
                (see below for usage)

Enabling widow control has a side effect that appears to disable the .ne request, allowing orphans to creep in. The .fpl request flushes pending lines, allowing .ne to do its job. In an -mm document, you could put the following at the beginning of your document (or in your locale file):

        .rn P P-orig
        .de P
        .  fpl
        .  P-orig
        .  ne 2
        ..
        .wdc

Note how the .fpl and .ne requests bracket the paragraph macro. This is the only ordering that achieves the desired results. The test file was an incomplete novel I've been working on; groff generated 47 pages of 10-point type without a single widow or orphan (vs. several with widow control turned off). It didn't have any footers or footnotes, so I don't know whether that would interfere or not yet.

Definitely worth more testing....

--
Larry Kollar     k  o  l  l  a  r  @  a  l  l  t  e  l  .  n  e  t
Unix Text Processing: "UTP Revival"
http://home.alltel.net/kollar/utp/



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