Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!ruuinf!cs.ruu.nl
From: piet@cs.ruu.nl (Piet van Oostrum)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: TeX \vbox trouble
Keywords: TeX \vbox \vfil
Message-ID: <2146@ruuinf.cs.ruu.nl>
Date: 8 Dec 89 15:54:59 GMT
References: <272@oksce1.okstate.edu>
Sender: news@ruuinf.cs.ruu.nl
Reply-To: piet@cs.ruu.nl (Piet van Oostrum)
Organization: Dept of Computer Science, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Lines: 35
In-reply-to: walters@oksce1.okstate.edu (Harold G. Walters)

In article <272@oksce1.okstate.edu>, walters@oksce1 (Harold G. Walters) writes:
 `
 `I'm trying to make an exactly 1 inch \vbox with text set in
 `paragraph mode along the bottom of the \vbox. Like
 `

 `\long\def\oneline#1{\vbox to 1.0in{     
 `\vfil{#1}
 `}} 
 `
 `Which works fine when the bottom line does not have descenders,
 `BUT if the bottom line has descenders like
 `
 `The actual size of the box is greater than 1 inch by an amount
 `of the depth of the descenders.  I guess the \vbox is calculating
 `the height based on the baseline of the text inside.
 `
 `IS this what is happening?
 `WHY does is happen this way, it seems like a \vbox should contain
 `	all of its contents in their entirety?
 `COULD someone tell me how to fix it?
 `
Look into the TeXbook, chapter 12, the paragraph just below exercise 12.10.

I think this is done so that you can align a few vboxes next to each other
with the texts coming out on equal height.

I think you can do something like this: put the text in a \vbox with
\boxmaxdepth set to 0, and then put that in the 1 inch \vbox.
Read page 81 of the TeXbook.
-- 
Piet* van Oostrum, Dept of Computer Science, Utrecht University,
Padualaan 14, P.O. Box 80.089, 3508 TB Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Telephone: +31-30-531806   Uucp:   uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!ruuinf!piet
Telefax:   +31-30-513791   Internet:  piet@cs.ruu.nl   (*`Pete')