Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!dino!sharkey!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!columbia!cunixc!cunixd.cc.columbia.edu!kasdan
From: kasdan@cunixd.cc.columbia.edu (John Kasdan)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: TeX problem
Keywords: \vcenter
Message-ID: <1643@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu>
Date: 29 Jun 89 21:49:38 GMT
Sender: news@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu
Reply-To: kasdan@cunixd.cc.columbia.edu (John Kasdan)
Organization: Columbia University
Lines: 47

I am a fairly new TeX user trying to set up legal forms. The
problem I am (currently) having is trying to get something
which looks sort of like:

a line of text       |
                     |
                      >
                     |
another line of text |

When I tried

$\left.\vbox to 1 in{
	\hbox to 1 in{hello there \hfil}\vfil
	\hbox to 1 in{goodbye there \hfil}}\right\}$
\vfill
\eject
\end

I got

hello there          |
                     |
                     |
                     |
goodbye there         >
                     |
                     |
                     |
                     |

I solved my problem by using

$\left.\vcenter{\hbox to 1 in{\vbox to 1 in
	{\hbox to 1 in{hello there \hfil}\vfil
	\hbox to 1 in{goodbye there \hfil}}}}\right\}$
\vfil
\eject
\end

which gave me what I wanted, but I don't know why. It
seems like my \vbox is getting an extra inch of depth in
the first example but not in the second. Can anyone
explain what's going on or, better yet, tell me where
in the TeX Book to look? Thanks, and if this is not
an appropriate posting, please let me know.
/KAS