Re: Texinfo help, please

[Janek Warchoł]

On Wed, Jul 11, 2012 at 1:56 PM, David Kastrup <address@hidden> wrote:
>
> "Phil Holmes" <address@hidden> writes:
> > It should wrap between the words "the file" and the filename.
>
> Obviously not enough stretchability for that to fit.  You can try
>
> @tex
> \global\emergencystretch=5in
> @end tex
>
> and see where this gets you (more likely than not, to unbelievable
> ugliness).  Or you can try writing raggedright paragraphs.

Would it be possible to automatically make lines with such problems
ragged?  It would probably be less ugly that an overstretched line.
As for "rephrasing" strategy, i find it not suited to our needs.  It's
good for publishers, whose job is to take care of such details when
they have an almost-ready-to-publish material.  We are not a
publishing house: we don't want to fiddle with typography in our
manuals.  Also, the manuals change, and the "rephrasing" solution is
not flexible enough.

Personally, i cannot understand how on Earth one could be satisfied
with such "i cannot solve this, it's your problem" approach of TeX to
this issue.  Sure, not all problems can be solved automatically and
rephrasing paragraphs might indeed be the best option (sometimes).
But it is always possible to find the least ugly solution: when the
overfull is not extremely big (< 0.1 line width), why not compress the
line?  (Sure, it'll be ugly, but not as ugly as leaving it as-is and
adding a black rectangle.)  When overfull is really big, why not break
it and make it ragged?
Any idea why TeX isn't smarter in this regard?  After all, if someone
wants to publish something big in many paper-sizes, it would be crazy
to apply manual corrections to each size separately.

best,
Janek