Re: [Groff] tbl problems in man

[Michael(tm) Smith]

"Eric S. Raymond" <address@hidden>, 2007-02-07 11:43 -0500:

> I wrote the documentation recently :-).  From groff_man in CVS:
> 
>        .TQ    The  TQ macro sets up header continuation for a .TP macro.  With
>               it, you can stack up any number of labels (such as  in  a  glos‐
>               sary,  or  list of commands) before beginning the indented para‐
>               graph.  For an example, look just past the next paragraph.
> 
>               This macro is not defined on legacy Unix systems running classic
>               troff.  To  be  certain your page will be portable to those sys‐
>               tems, copy its definition from the an-ext.tmac file of  a  groff
>               installation.
> 
> I don't think it's safe for your stylesheets to use it yet.  It won't be until
> well after 1.19.3 ships.

What if I just have the stylesheet embed the macro definition in
the output of each page?

> More generally, I disagree with Werner's position that TP/TQ is preferable
> to tables with T{ T} in them.  I'm going to change groff_mm in accordance 
> with his diktat, because it's his package and his call, but I'm not going
> to like it.

Well, then I'd really like to have some general solution
(workaround) that would cause the cell widths in tables with any
arbitary number of columns to set to something more reasonable
than what tbl(1) currently does.

I don't know actually know if TQ solves that problem. But I'd sure
like to have something better -- regardless of how it it's
implemented.

  --Mike

-- 
Michael(tm) Smith
http://people.w3.org/mike/