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From: peterm@cadvaxoz.eecs.unsw.oz (Peter Maxwell)
Newsgroups: net.text
Subject: font changes in tbl
Message-ID: <190@cadvaxoz.eecs.unsw.oz>
Date: Fri, 1-Aug-86 00:49:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: cadvaxoz.190
Posted: Fri Aug  1 00:49:02 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 2-Aug-86 23:23:43 EDT
Organization: EE and CS, Uni of NSW, Sydney, Australia
Lines: 27

Here is an undocumented (at least in the documents I have) feature of tbl.
In the format specification, if you use the letter "f" for font
specification, tbl actually looks for TWO characters.  Thus "fBI" really
does give bold italics.  However, it means the following example crashes,
with mysterious messages about being unable to scan over such and such...

center;
lfB lfB.
data

But the following works...

center;
lfB lfB .		note the extra space before the dot
data

What's more you can omit the "f" (as per doco)...

center;
lB lB.			note no space needed before dot
data

And the following does give bold italics....

center;
lfB lfBI.
data