[net.text] Help with Tabs in troff

terry@nrcvax.UUCP (Terry Grevstad) (09/13/85)

         ********  HELP!  ********

This is driving me crazy.  No matter what I try, I can't get the tab
stops to work right in troff.  It just ignores any tab (or leader)
command I give it.  I set the tabs with the .ta command as in the
following:
                      .ta 2i 4i

I'm in no fill mode.  I call the tabs like so:

                    \t134\t135
                    \t136\t137

and when the stuff comes out it looks like this:

                    134135
                    136137

WHAT AM I DOING WRONG?  Any suggestions, ideas, recommendations will
be deeply appreciated.  Please, no snickers, guffaws, or obnoxious
noises, I *am* relatively new at this and I don't usually use tabs.
(tbl works very well, thank you, but not for this particular
problem.)

-- 
\"\t\f1A\h'+1m'\f4\(mo\h'+1m'\f1the\h'+1m'\f4\(es\t\f1\c
_______________________________________________________________________

                                                       Terry Grevstad
                                         Network Research Corporation
	                 {sdcsvax,hplabs}!sdcrdcf!psivax!nrcvax!terry
                                            ucbvax!calma!nrcvax!terry

rbp@investor.UUCP (Bob Peirce) (09/19/85)

> This is driving me crazy.  No matter what I try, I can't get the tab
> stops to work right in troff.  It just ignores any tab (or leader)
> command I give it.  I set the tabs with the .ta command as in the
> following:
>                       .ta 2i 4i
> 
> I'm in no fill mode.  I call the tabs like so:
> 
>                     \t134\t135
>                     \t136\t137
> 
> and when the stuff comes out it looks like this:
> 
>                     134135
>                     136137

You're not alone.  We have the same problem in nroff.  However, we found
our version worked if you fed it two (2) dummy tab stops:

			.ta 0 0 5 41 58

This will set stops at columns 5, 41 and 58. Unfortunately, this does not
do wonders for tbl!  I would love to know how to fix it with only a
binary.
-- 

	 	    Bob Peirce, Pittsburgh, PA
	    uucp: ...!{allegra, bellcore, cadre, idis}
	  	     !pitt!darth!investor!rbp
			    412-471-5320

	    NOTE:  Mail must be < 30K  bytes/message

jaap@mcvax.UUCP (Jaap Akkerhuis) (09/19/85)

In article <257@nrcvax.UUCP> terry@nrcvax.UUCP (Terry Grevstad) writes:
 > 
 >          ********  HELP!  ********
 > 
 > This is driving me crazy.  No matter what I try, I can't get the tab
 > stops to work right in troff.  It just ignores any tab (or leader)
 > command I give it.  I set the tabs with the .ta command as in the
 > following:
 >                       .ta 2i 4i
 > 
 > I'm in no fill mode.  I call the tabs like so:
 > 
 >                     \t134\t135
 >                     \t136\t137

You should use TABS instead of \t.
As the manual says, \t will become a tab in copy mode, so when
defining a macro or string.


	--jaap