On 2025-05-24 11:51:04 +0100, Gavin Smith wrote:
> On Tue, May 20, 2025 at 05:17:31PM +0200, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> > There is no documentation at all for @multitable.
> > On the following example:
> >
> > \input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*-
> > @setfilename multitable.info
> >
> > @ifnottex
> > @node Top, (dir), (dir), (dir)
> > @top multitable test
> > @end ifnottex
> >
> > @multitable {col 1} {col 2}
> > @item a @tab 1
> > @item b @tab 2
> >
> > @item c @tab 3
> > @item d @tab 4
> > @end multitable
> >
> > @bye
> >
> > from <https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=512307>,
> > the behavior has changed over the time. With texi2any 7.1.1, I get
> > a blank line in the info and PDF files between the second and third
> > items, but not in the HTML file.
>
> Is there a problem with the current output?
>
> It seems to me that it does not matter what appears in the HTML file,
> only what is displayed in the HTML browser. A blank line in the HTML
> file does not correspond to blank vertical space displayed to the person
> browsing the file.
Actually, with texinfo 4.13 in the past, this was an empty paragraph
that was generated in the HTML file (<p> with no text after it), and
this was rendered as a blank line in practice. The blank line in the
source is now completely ignored for the HTML output.
> Likewise for PDF output, there is not such a thing as a "blank line" the
> way there is for Info output: only more or less blank vertical space.
IMHO, blank lines before @item and at the end of @item contents in the
texinfo source should be ignored (as being confusing and error prone)
in favor of standardized style, like in LaTeX. Changes of the style
should be done with explicit commands. Blank lines should normally be
used as paragraph separators, not to generate empty paragraphs.
--
Vincent Lefèvre <vinc...@vinc17.net> - Web: <https://www.vinc17.net/>
100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <https://www.vinc17.net/blog/>
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Pascaline project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)
