Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!osu-cis!att!ihlpf!crocker
From: crocker@ihlpf.ATT.COM (Crocker)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: nroff/mm problem
Summary: Use .rs
Keywords: .SP .sp top-of-page
Message-ID: <5853@ihlpf.ATT.COM>
Date: 25 Aug 88 15:03:51 GMT
References: <372@seila.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, Illinois
Lines: 53

In article <372@seila.UUCP>, don@seila.UUCP (Don Kossman) writes:
> this is driving us crazy:
> 
> how do you force nroff (using the mm macro package)
> to leave n spaces at the top of a page?  .sp and .SP seem
> to have no effect.  
> what are we doing wrong?
> 
> -- 
> Don Kossman, SEI Information Technology, Los Angeles
> usenet:  ...sun!tsunami!seila!don, ...uunet!mahendo!jplgodo!seila!don

When you begin a new page by executing a .bp (this is inherent in
.SK or hitting the bottom of a page), you are put into "no-space"
mode.  In no-space mode, .sp and .bp requests are ingored (see
"Nroff/Troff User's Manual, October 11, 1976, section 5).  What
this means to you is that your .sp requests are being ignored
because you are in no-space mode.  There are a multitude of
mechanisms for getting out of no space mode, such as printing a
character (a blank works nicely for this because you can't really
tell it is there), or using the .rs (Restore spacing, same section)
request to turn off no-space mode.

For example, you could have the following in your document:

 ...
text
 ...
.SK	\" move to new page
.rs	\" darn it, i really want to put some space here
.SP 10	\" and 10 lines is the space I want
 ...
more text.
 ...

Or, you could just do the following

.am SK
.rs
..

This makes the .SK macro turn no-space mode off for you so you
don't have to remember every time you start a new page to turn off
no-space mode.

Hope this helps!

Ron Crocker
IHP 1A-213
x5262
-- 
Ron Crocker
IHP 1A-213
x5262