Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!sun!angel!henry
From: henry%angel@Sun.COM (Henry McGilton -- Software Products)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Negative Spacing in TROFF Diversions
Keywords: TROFF, Diversions, Negative Spacing.
Message-ID: <129555@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 22 Dec 89 00:11:29 GMT
Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM
Lines: 45


OK, all you REAL TROFF Wizards out there.  I keep running
into this problem with diversions.  Briefly, if I do something
like this:

	.br		\"  break last output line
	.di qq		\"  start diverting into qq
	.sp -1v		\"  space back one vertical
	lots of glop	\"  stuff to be diverted
	.br		\"  break last output line
	.di		\"  end diversion

When I subsequently bring back the contents of the diversion,
the whole thing just disappears.  Baffles me.  Any ideas?

To expand on this a bit, I'm trying to work around an annoying
problem placing PIC diagrams inside tables.  I create a table, like so:

	.TS
	tab (@) ;
	l  l  l  .
	some stuff@T{
	.PS
	box
	.PE
	T}@more stuff
	.TE

Where I place the PIC diagram inside a text block.  When I format
this through PIC | TBL | TROFF and so on, the top of the picture
always comes out at the baseline of the text `some stuff'.  So
I tried moving the diagram up by placing a  .sp -1v  right at the
start of the text block (which gets thrown into a diversion), and
the whole contents of the text block just disappear.

I'm using vanilla DWB 2.0 as provided by A. T. & T.

	Thanks for any answers,
	    ............... Henry
+-------------------+--------------------------+---------------------------+
| Henry McGilton    | Think of using TROFF as  |                           |
| Sun Microsystems  | writing microcode for a  | arpa: hmcgilton@sun.com   |
| 2550 Garcia       | typesetter, and you have | uucp: ...!sun!angel!henry |
| Mountain View, CA | the idea.                |                           |
+-------------------+--------------------------+---------------------------+