RE: Is decreasing top margin with mm macros broken?

[Jeff Conrad]

On Monday, May 17, 2021 1:05 PM, James K. Lowden wrote

> Does anyone how to decrease the top margin with mm macros?
> > There is VM macro that is supposed to change it, however it
> > has no effect on the top margin, when one wants to decrease
> > it.  Looks like the top margin can only be increased.

I made the same determination 35 years ago; seemed like a bug even then.

On Monday, May 17, 2021 1:27 PM, Tadziu Hoffmann wrote
[citing old MM manual]
>   To obtain more specialized page titles, the user may redefine
>   the .TP macro to cause the desired header processing.

This is what I did, though my version is still based on AT&T roff, so
it's not optimal for groff.  I added (the unused) registers H and M to
control the page header and top-of-page margins, respectively.  I think
I used default values of 0.35i and 1i.

That MM version also had a humongous bottom margin, which could not
be changed, so I similarly added registers F and B for the footer and
text margins.  Because the authors had apparently assumed that no one
would ever need to change this, it took a bit of hackery to get the
bottom-of-page stuff to work.

Strange that one should need to resort to this sorta stuff ...

Jeff Conrad