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From: debra@alice.UUCP (Paul De Bra)
Newsgroups: comp.text,comp.misc
Subject: Re: HELP! with boxed tables using MM, tbl
Keywords: MM tbl
Message-ID: <8909@alice.UUCP>
Date: 13 Feb 89 16:15:16 GMT
References: <946@mtuxj.att.com> <1085@hsi.UUCP>
Reply-To: debra@alice.UUCP ()
Distribution: usa
Organization: AT&T, Bell Labs
Lines: 41

In article <1085@hsi.UUCP> hecht@hsi.UUCP (Alice Hecht) writes:
?In article <946@mtuxj.att.com>, btwomey@mtuxj.att.com (XF3AA-W.TWOMEY) writes:
?> 
?> I'm trying to create multi-page boxed tables using tbl and mm and troff.
?> I'm using .TS H and .TH to get the header repeated on pages.
?> 
?> MM has problems though. I have had: the sides of the box go missing;
?> pages come out blank except for the table header; and the last page 
?> have the last few lines jam into each other as if the vertical space
?> had been decreased, as in .vs 2 .  Lots of nonsense, really.
?> 
?> I'll break the table into several page sized tables as a last resort.
?> 
?I've had similar problems with tables before and the only thing that 
?ended working was ending the table at the bottom of each page and then
?restarting it again at the top.  It seems that sometimes you can use
?the running table headers and sometimes it doesn't like it.  The worst
?learning experience I ever had with tables was when I started a job
?at the end of the day and left for home and when I came in the
?next day to pick up my printout found out that the system administrator
?finally had to cancel my job 8 hours after I had left.  What had happened
?was the table went into an infinite loop and tied up a majority
?of our CPU processing time.  They weren't too happy with me that day.
?
?So if you're trying to have a table run from one page to the next, don't!
?There is definitely a bug in troff there (and by the way I was using the
?MS macro but your situation sounds identical to mine).
?

From working with people that are serious troff/tbl hackers I can predict
that the bug most likely is in tbl, not in MM or troff. Tbl never checks
the distance to the next trap, so whenever a table hits a trap or end of
page the table gets messed up, since tbl generates code that does not print
the table completely from the top to the bottom. Trying to go up and down
on a page only works as long as you don't hit a trap.

Paul.
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