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From: reid@glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid)
Newsgroups: net.text
Subject: Re: fixed-pitch spacing in ordinary troff
Message-ID: <1868@glacier.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 2-Dec-85 00:28:55 EST
Article-I.D.: glacier.1868
Posted: Mon Dec  2 00:28:55 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 3-Dec-85 07:40:02 EST
References: <1834@glacier.ARPA> <2397@ukma.UUCP>
Reply-To: reid@glacier.UUCP (Brian Reid)
Organization: Stanford University, Computer Systems Lab
Lines: 22

In article <2397@ukma.UUCP> sean@ukma.UUCP (Sean Casey) writes:
>I'd be interested in hearing about this too.  We supposedly have fixed width
>fonts but they aren't TRULY fixed width.  We have some applications where the
>characters must align all the way down a page....  It is some
>anomally or misuse of troff that is causing the characters to not line up.

Well, let's see. One possible way of getting bad results would be if you
followed the halfway correct answer that elan!kg (Ken Greer) posted earlier
in this newsgroup. Ken's solution is identical to the one that I had come up
with and which did not work, thereby causing me to ask for help. Matt Bishop
of RIACS and Bernie Cosell of BBN both sent me correct solutions (correct ==
they work in my application). Since both Matt and Bernie read net.text, I'll
leave it to one of them to post their explanation. Matt, yours was an
in-depth explanation of the problem, and Bernie, yours was a macro package
that works, so perhaps both of you should do it.

The problem with Greer's solution is that it does not work in traps and
diversions. To my jaundiced eye this is primarily a condemnation of the
whole idea of traps and diversions, but that's another story.
-- 
	Brian Reid	decwrl!glacier!reid
	Stanford	reid@SU-Glacier.ARPA