hsk@infko.UUCP (Friedrich Haubensak) (04/12/90)
Two LaTeX deficiencies, if not to say bugs, that I found out the last days.
Can't remember having read about these before.
For immediate remedy you may add the proposed patches to your personal
always_to_be_read_macro_file.
1.) in latex.tex, \@starttoc should be defined as
\def\@starttoc#1{\begingroup
\makeatletter
\@input{\jobname.#1}\if@filesw \expandafter\newwrite\csname tf@#1\endcsname
\immediate\openout \csname tf@#1\endcsname \jobname.#1\relax
\fi \endgroup}
In latex.tex (of 4 Aug 1988) the \openout lacks of the \immediate, leading
to an error, if no \shipout is performed between \@starttoc and the end
of the document, when the .aux file(s) are read in again. (This actually
happened after I modified \chapter to put the chapter heading on a page
of its own and let begin the text on the next page, and put the list of
tables etc. to the end of the document.)
2.) in [art|rep|bk]1[0|1|2].sty (and letter.sty)
insert
\topskip\ht\strutbox \maxdepth\dp\strutbox
after \normalsize is selected and before \textheight is set.
Well, \textheight is carefully set to n*\baselineskip + \topskip, for some
suitable number n. But, if \topskip and \maxdepth aren't also changed,
size-dependent, from their (plain-)defaults, the definition sometimes misses,
when using the 12pt option, its intended purpose, namely allowing an
integral number of normalsized lines to fit exactly onto the page. E.g.,
think of a tabbing environment (each line is made as high and as deep
as \strutbox) that spans several pages, and \flushbottom being active:
underfull \vboxes will occur while \output is active... (Again, this
actually happened.)
Does LL read this?
Greetings from the river Rhine, Fritz