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From: bamford@cbnewsd.att.com (harold.e.bamford)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: Creating 2 column documents in -roff
Keywords: Comes with example attached
Message-ID: <1991Apr30.185639.5013@cbnewsd.att.com>
Date: 30 Apr 91 18:56:39 GMT
References: <1883@eastman.UUCP> <1991Apr29.210724.5436@cbnewsl.att.com> <1991Apr30.175357.8066@letni.lonestar.org>
Distribution: na
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 45

In article <1991Apr30.175357.8066@letni.lonestar.org>
doug@letni.lonestar.org (Doug Davis) takes a poke at DWB 3.1
without thinking things through.

Basically, somebody wanted 2 column mode.  Nils-Peter Nelson
(correctly) pointed out that DWB 3.1 provides this capability and
he also pointed out that tbl was inadequate for 2 column output:

>>The .2C macro in -ms and -mm, both included with DWB 3.1,
>>produce 2 column output. The Tutorial in the troff
>>documentation for DWB 3.1 includes a 20-line implementation.
>
>>You most assuredly can't use tbl unless you read left-to-right
>>across columns.

Doug Davis replies with this sneer:

>BZZZZT! Ding! Sorry you lose, thank you for playing our game. For our
>consulation prize today we have here a quick and dirty example of using
>tbl to do multi-column text.

... simplistic case deleted ...

If you want a multipage document with 2 columns throughout, then
tbl is the wrong way to go.  If there is too much in the first
table entry to fit in the first column of the first page, it does
indeed overflow into the second column.  But then on the next page,
only the 2nd column is shown (with the rest of the first table
entry!), and it continues until the first  table item is finished.
Then only the first column is shown for as many pages as are
needed.  Further, the box only shows up on the first and last pages
(though this might be different depending on the version of tbl
being used).

If you knew the placement of the table on the page and knew exactly
how much to put in each table entry so as to fill exactly 1 column,
then you could use tbl for 2 column output.  Kinda tedious and
defeats the whole purpose of having a computer format the document
for you.  It also means that you cannot have tables (formatted by
tbl, that is) in your document.

I don't remember the details of the original request, but the .2C
macro is also available in older versions of DWB in -mm and -ms.

-- Harold Bamford