[comp.text] Automatic change of linespacing is ugly

Markku.Savela@tel.vtt.fi (Markku Savela) (10/11/90)

  This is minor nit picking on my behalf, but I don't understand
why most of the text formatters automaticly adjust the spacing
for single lines according to the content of line? This gets
especially ugly if you have a single superscript or subscript
on the line, then otherwise even flow of lines is interrupted
by ugly large gap.

  This kind of automatic is sometimes useful, but programs
should have a way to disable this feature (and let me judge
whether extra spacing is really needed or not). [ I once
had two column text using Interleaf TPS 3.0 (or 4.0?) and
the result was unacceptable, because I didn't find any way
to get the lines aligned on both columns. ]

  Which brings me to the question: how do I lock linespacing
in troff (or specifically gtroff 0.5) so that it doesn't do
this automatic adjusting?
--
Markku Savela                         | savela@tel.vtt.fi
Technical Research Centre of Finland  |
Telecommunications Laboratory         | Markku.Savela@vtt.fi
Otakaari 7 B, SF-02150 ESPOO, Finland | savela%vtttel@router.funet.fi 

Markku.Savela@tel.vtt.fi (Markku Savela) (10/11/90)

In article <5181@hemuli.tik.vtt.fi> Markku.Savela@tel.vtt.fi (Markku Savela) writes:
>in troff (or specifically gtroff 0.5) so that it doesn't do
>this automatic adjusting?

  Oops.. :-) Obviously this may be a feature of the macro
package. So, how is it with "me" macroes? (in my case I don't
want footnote reference numbers to affect the line spacing).
--
Markku Savela                         | savela@tel.vtt.fi
Technical Research Centre of Finland  |
Telecommunications Laboratory         | Markku.Savela@vtt.fi
Otakaari 7 B, SF-02150 ESPOO, Finland | savela%vtttel@router.funet.fi 

eijkhout@s41.csrd.uiuc.edu (Victor Eijkhout) (10/11/90)

Markku.Savela@tel.vtt.fi (Markku Savela) writes:


>  This is minor nit picking on my behalf, but I don't understand
>why most of the text formatters automaticly adjust the spacing
>for single lines according to the content of line? This gets
>especially ugly if you have a single superscript or subscript
>on the line, then otherwise even flow of lines is interrupted
>by ugly large gap.

'most of the text formatters' excludes TeX!
In TeX interline space is a three-parameter phenomenon that can
be dressed to do most everything. In particular, the default
settings are so that a subscript in one line and a superscript in
the next most of the time don't alter the baseline distance.

Victor.

npn@cbnewsl.att.com (nils-peter.nelson) (10/16/90)

troff vertical line spacing is set explicitly by .vs.
There is no automatic spacing. However, subscripts and
superscripts are usually done via eqn, which does
adjust vertical spacing. "x sup down 20 j" would adjust
the superscript j lower by .2 ems, which might avoid
your original problem.