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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!houxm!hogpc!pegasus!hansen
From: hansen@pegasus.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.text
Subject: Re: troff problems with \h
Message-ID: <1909@pegasus.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 14-Nov-84 11:12:34 EST
Article-I.D.: pegasus.1909
Posted: Wed Nov 14 11:12:34 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 15-Nov-84 03:20:57 EST
References: <1891@pegasus.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Information Systems, Lincroft NJ
Lines: 26

Thank you to everyone who responded to my question on troff. My question had
to do with using the width of a string within a \h construct to do
horizontal movement, as in:

	\h'0-\w'foo'/2u+14n'

The trouble boils down to the fact that the \w construct returns a number,
scaled in units, for the width. The fact that scaling has already occurred
is not returned. Then \h takes that number and scales it AGAIN with the
default scaling of an em. The solution is to add a 'u' after the \w to
indicate to troff that the number is already scaled, as in:

	\h'0-\w'foo'u/2u+14n'
		    ^
		    |

As one person put it,

< The key here is that troff is incredibly stupid about units.
< It is safest to always put a units specifier on everything.

Thanks again. I hope that this short note will save someone else grief at
some time in the future.

					Tony Hansen
					pegasus!hansen