Subject: Re: Exact column widths in 'tbl'
References: <xfmail.110810125351.ted.hard...@wlandres.net>
>Greetings all!
>This is a follow-up to Chriss Schaller's query yesterday,
>and the subsequent replies. I have opened e new thread,
>since it is a topic of general interest.
>Of course the keyword w(...) in the table format line,
>e.g.
>.TS
>tab(#);
>l lw(3i) lw(1.25i).
>[...]
>.TE
>specifies a *minimum* column width. So it will not do
>for setting a maximum column width, especially where there
>are long text blocks in some cells.
>The following example shows how to do it in general. The
>basis is that a ".ll" request in a text block sets a line
>length and this will be reflected in the resulting column
>width (unless something else, e.g. a long entry which is
>not a text block, forces a wider column).
>Put the following into a file temp.tr :
>--8<--cut here--8<--------------------------------------------
>.TS
>tab(#);
>| l | l | l |.
>_
>08/08/2011#T{
>.ll 3i
>This is quite a long paragraph of text specially composed
>for yesterday's date.
>The purpose is to see what happens to it in a 3-inch
>column width.
>T}#T{
>.ll 1.25i
>And this is some silly stuff to fill column 3,
>1.25 inches wide.
>T}
>09/08/2011//12:15#T{
>.ll 3i
>And this is another long paragraph specially composed
>to suit the particular circumstances that apply at this moment
>of this date.
>T}#T{
>.ll 1.25i
>And this is more silly stuff to fill column 3,
>still 1.25 inches wide.
>T}
>_
>.TE
>.sp 0.5m
>Finally, we follow up with a lot of text outside the table
>just to show that the per-column settings of \f[CB].ll\fP
>in the above table have not affected the general ambient
>line-length outside the table.
>--8<--cut here--8<--------------------------------------------
>Then execute
>groff -t temp.tr > temp.ps
>and view the resulting PostScript file temp.ps
Does that actually use the tbl command? If not, how can this be done
with tbl, given the following broken example:
tbl<<EOF | nroff -Tascii | uniq
.TS
box tab(|);
cb|cb|cb|cb.
col1 | col2 | col3 | long column
.T&
l|c|c|lp20.
short|short|short|this is a very long string of text that should be wrapped
into several lines so it will not run off the page
.TE
EOF
