An experiment in page makeup for troff output... -mpm is a version of standard -ms that causes extra information for vertical justification and figure placement to be included in troff output. Commands that have been augmented to provide paddable space are .SH and .NH .PP and .LP no space if \n(PD is 0; normally .nr PD 0.3v; leave at least 1u .IP and .QP also .EQ and .EN .TS and .TE no space if \n(TS is 0; normally .nr TS 0.5v .PS and .PE .P1 and .P2 display programs in CW font .DS and .DE .QS and .QE Other commands, registers, strings, etc.: .SP n explicit paddable space, just like .sp n. generally you should ALWAYS use .SP instead of .sp. if you need exactly a given vertical space, you can say .SP 3i exactly this space won't be padded. .Tm words prints "words" and the output page number on stderr sorry about the spelling; -ms pre-empted .TM .NE n like .ne. note: does not cause a break Others may be added as the need arises. .nr FO n Set the page length. This value is the bottom of the text on the page; a bottom title may lie below. default is 10i (== 10 inches). %o, %e are strings containing odd and even page titles %# is the current page number (often useless) .PT is a macro invoked at the top of each "page"; it will normally use %e, %o and %#. There is also a .BT for page bottoms if desired. .BP force a page break .FL force all waiting figures out before any more running text .1C, .2C multiple columns; number registers CW and GW set the column and gutter width if you don't like the default. absent a .FC command, all two-column contents collect together on the page .FC freeze current two-column contents and start afresh. necessary if you want to switch between 1 and 2 column text and keep the relative order among them. Usage is some variant of ... | troff -mpm /usr/lib/tmac/pm is the page-justifier itself; it is called automatically by the -mpm macro package. If you are installing this yourself, you will have to edit the 2nd line of tmac.pm to arrange that pm is called directly from troff. There are several lines in tmac.pm that say .so /n/coma/usr/bwk/... You should delete these; they are placeholders for some experiments. If you use -mm, you are more or less out of luck, although we will be happy to provide a crude and incomplete program that purports to convert -mm to -ms. It may suggest what you need but it won't do the job. To compile pm, you need a C++ compiler, preferably release 2.0 or later. Put the .c and .h files in a directory, and type make This process may well fail. The usual cause is that different systems put function declarations in different header files, and C++ insists that all functions be properly declared. You can almost always get through this part by adding function declarations. The most likely offender is malloc; a line like extern char *malloc(int); near the top of slug.c will solve this one. Bugs, etc.: not all -ms commands have been decorated; in particular, the rich variety of document types (TM, CSTR, etc.,) is not really supported. there are problems with funny first pages and troff input that moves back up the page. multiple columns: only .2C is available. The program does not check whether something is wide or narrow: user has responsibility to mark which with .1C or .2C. headings are a bit tricky if you want things like running titles that include the current section title. normally a two-pass procedure using .Tm is needed. It's a pain to force a blank vertical space of specified height. Try this: .de x \v'\\$1'\0\h'-\w'\0'u'\c .. .x 2.5i If you want to roll your own, the following components are included in pm's "command language". They are inserted in the troff output in the form of "x X ..." commands, which are created either by \X'...' or by the .X macro in -mpm. Look at how they are used in /usr/lib/tmac/tmac.pm for examples. BS n breakable stream n = min # lines that must appear on page use: PP, LP, IP, ... US unbreakable stream use: KS/KE, DS/DE, TS/TE, EQ/EN, PS/PE, etc. BF v breakable float v = preferred vertical location of box center use: FS/FE use two successive BF's to give two preferences UF v unbreakable float v = preferred vertical location of box center use: KF/KE use two successive UF's to give two preferences PT page title use: user has absolute control between PT and END no SP's or other pm commands inside are processed BT bottom title use: user has absolute control between BT and END END end end a US, BF, UF, PT, or BT all constructs nest, but a float within another float or a US block will not float within or outside the block NE n need break page if a VBOX of height n would not fit on page use: .NE n SP n space paddable space of n use: .SP n PARM NP v top of pm text at v new page PARM FO v bottom of pm text at v footer length of text on page = FO-NP PARM PL v physical page ends at v page length default = FO + NP PARM MF x tolerance to prevent padding minimum fullness default = 0.9 PARM CT x tolerance for two-column operation column tolerance default = 0.5 PARM DBG x debugging flag TM str message .Tm words prints on stderr MC n o multiple column n columns, offset o. Only 1 and 2 columns will work. CMD BP break page force page break CMD FL flush force all queued figures out before any more stream material is output CMD FC freeze columns force out current two-column contents; start a fresh one Something like this will probably have to be added: NC new column HARD! Known botches in the existing implementation of pm: If a footnote is split across two pages, any associated separator line will not be copied. If there are multiple footnotes on one page, there will be multiple separators too. -mpm's .FS macro does not provide a separator. If you want a separator line, put it in explicitly with a call to the .FA macro. There are not enough settable parameters; in particular, the way to control the height is a botch. Historical note: There is a simpler version of pm and -mpm called pj and -mpj that only does vertical justification of pages that have already been laid out by conventional means. This simpler version may be adequate, but it is no longer supported and memory of how it works is growing dim.