Message-Id: <199211091623.AA06258@mail.cs.tu-berlin.de>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
Date:         Mon, 9 Nov 92 09:10:57 MST
From: "Nelson H. F. Beebe" <beebe@MATH.UTAH.EDU>
Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
To: Multiple Recipients of <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
Subject:      \raggedbottom and footnote placement
Status: R


The author, columnist, and ANSI X3J3 C Standards committee member, Rex
Jaeschke asked me about a problem he was having with \raggedbottom in
a new book he is finishing up.  He found footnotes floating up to the
bottom of the text, rather than staying down at the bottom of the page
where his publisher wants them.

I traced the problem to the definition of \skip\footins in lplain.tex,
which is set to \bigskipamount.  By inserting a redefinition of that
value in the definition of \raggedbottom, I was able to solve his
problem.  The new definition is

\def\raggedbottom{\def\@textbottom{\vskip \z@ plus.0001fil}\let\@texttop\relax
                  \skip\footins=12pt plus 1fil}

where the 2nd line contains the only change I made.

The questions for this group are
        (1) is this a design oversight in the current LaTeX that should be
        fixed, or did Leslie Lamport intend that footnotes in raggedbottom
        float upwards?
        (2) what is LaTeX 3 going to do with this?

Here is a test file that illustrates the effect of my changes; comment
out the \raggedbottom definition to see how it works in the current
LaTeX 2.09.

% -*-latex-*-
% Document name: /u/sy/beebe/rex.ltx
% Creator: Nelson H. F. Beebe [beebe@plot79.math.utah.edu]
% Creation Date: Tue Nov  3 12:56:48 1992
\documentstyle[]{report}

\newcommand{\bl} {{\vspace{\baselineskip}}} % print blank line

% define a block that cannot be split across a page boundary

\newenvironment{block}{%
\bl%
\noindent%
\begin{minipage}{\linewidth}%
}%
{%
\end{minipage}%
}

\makeatletter
% OLD:
% \def\raggedbottom{\def\@textbottom{\vskip \z@ plus.0001fil}\let\@texttop\relax
   }
% NEW:
\def\raggedbottom{\def\@textbottom{\vskip \z@ plus.0001fil}\let\@texttop\relax
                  \skip\footins=12pt plus 1fil}
\makeatother

\newcommand{\blah}
{
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
}

\begin{document}
\raggedbottom

\chapter{One}
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.\footnote{First one.}
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.\footnote{Next one.}
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.\footnote{A third one.}
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.\footnote{The last one.}

\blah

\begin{block}
\begin{verbatim}
// Structures versus classes

#include <iostream.h>

struct CircleA {
        long xorigin;
        long yorigin;
        unsigned long radius;
};
\end{verbatim}
\end{block}

\begin{block}
\begin{verbatim}
class CircleB {
public:
        long xorigin;
        long yorigin;
        unsigned long radius;
};
\end{verbatim}
\end{block}

\begin{block}
\begin{verbatim}
main()
{
        static CircleA circle1;
        CircleB circle2;

        circle1.xorigin = 5;
        circle2.yorigin = 6;
\end{verbatim}
\end{block}

\begin{block}
\begin{verbatim}
        cout << "circle1.radius = " << circle1.radius << '\n';
        cout << "circle2.radius = " << circle2.radius << '\n';

        cout << "sizeof(CircleA) = " << sizeof(CircleA) << '\n';
        cout << "sizeof(CircleB) = " << sizeof(CircleB) << '\n';

        return 0;
}
\end{verbatim}
\end{block}

\end{document}


========================================================================
Nelson H. F. Beebe                      Tel: +1 801 581 5254
Center for Scientific Computing         FAX: +1 801 581 4148
Department of Mathematics, 105 JWB      Internet: beebe@math.utah.edu
University of Utah
Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA
========================================================================