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From: david@varian.UUCP (David Brown)
Newsgroups: net.text
Subject: column help wanted
Message-ID: <382@varian.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 7-Oct-85 19:40:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: varian.382
Posted: Mon Oct  7 19:40:04 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Oct-85 20:32:23 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: Varian, Walnut Creek, CA
Lines: 32

I am using (old) troff and -me macros on a VAX (4.1bsd and 4.2bsd).
The column macros (.2c, .1c, and .bc) do a nice job with columns, but
if the text fills up less than a full page, you end up with something
like a full length left column and a partial right column.  Has anyone
written any multiple-column macros that allow one to have 2 equal
length columns? 
e.g.

	--------		    --------
	xxx  xxx      instead of    xxx  xxx
	xxx  xxx		    xxx
	xxx  xxx		    xxx
				    xxx
				    xxx
	--------		    ---------

   It seems like one would need to send all output to a diversion, and
then when you hit a true page break (either the end of the 2nd column or
a .bp, etc.) you would divide the number of lines and output half in one
column and half in the other.   I've never written any macros involving
diversions (and frankly am afraid of them...), so if anyone has already
done this, I'd appreciate it very much if they'd send me mail or post
their macro (I'm sure that others are interested).  Any hints would be
appreciated.

A similar thing that I'd like to be able to do is leave blank space for
a full width diagram in a 2 column document.

-- 
	David Brown	 (415) 945-2199
	Varian Instruments 2700 Mitchell Dr.  Walnut Creek, Ca. 94598
	{zehntel,dual,amd,fortune,rtech}!varian!david