[9fans] troff macro II

[rudolf.sykora@gmail.com (Rudolf Sykora)]

On 25 March 2011 22:52, pmarin <pmarin.mail at gmail.com> wrote:
> DONE!
> Try the attached code. I am not using the ms macros. You will to
> change the ms macros to get something similar.
>
> troff test.ms | tr2post | psfonts > test.ps
>
> Cheers.
> pmarin

Yes. This works. Actually, my problem has always only been: how to get
back to the top of a page; to have a correct string prepared to put
there has been easy for me. Note what I wrote in my 1st post of this
thread:
.
.\"  ABOVE IS THE ORIGINAL, BELOW MY APPENDIX
.mk
\v'|0.5i'
.tl 'a'b'c'
.rt
..

and it comes in a modified .BT macro (which is somewhat equivalent to
your .NP; ms actually sets [as far as I know] 3 traps on a page, 1 at
the top [.NP] and 2 at the bottom [.FO a .BT]). If I had written just
.
.\"  ABOVE IS THE ORIGINAL, BELOW MY APPENDIX
.tl '\v'-10.5i'a'b'c\v'+10.5i''
..

as you have, it would have basically done what I want. So now the
question is why
.tl '\v'-10.5i'a'b'c\v'+10.5i''
moves back and does the work, whilst
.mk
\v'|0.5i'
.tl 'a'b'c'
.rt
does not.
Nor does this, for instance:
\v'-10.5i'
.tl 'a'b'c'
\v'+10.5i'

Thanks for your help
Ruda