Message-Id: <199402091650.AA24782@mail.cs.tu-berlin.de>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
Date:         Wed, 9 Feb 1994 16:41:46 LCL
From: Mike Piff <M.Piff@sheffield.ac.uk>
Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Continuation lines
Status: R

From:          "Johannes L. Braams" <J.L.Braams@RESEARCH.PTT.NL>

%>  If I may refer to a talk I gave in Portland at TUG92, this sort of
%>  thing can be acheived *without* fiddling with output routines.
%>
%>  Algorithm (just cut from an existing style file, so it needs
%>  modification):
%>
%>\newbox\question@box
%>\newbox\rest@box
%>\newlength\question@ht
%>\question@ht=<room left on the page, to be determined by \question>
%>
%>\def\question#1{\def\q@num{#1}\question@ht=...\pickup@text}
%>\def\endquestion{%
%>    \endpickup@text{question}%
%>               {Question \q@num\space(continued)}
%>               {Question \q@num\space continued on next page}}
%>
%>\def\pickup@text{\setbox\pickup@box=\vbox%
%>    \bgroup\hsize=\pickup@wd\@parboxrestore}
%>\def\endpickup@text#1#2#3{\egroup\vbadness=10000
%>    \edef\box@todo{\expandafter\csname#1@box\endcsname}
%>    \edef\box@height{\expandafter\csname#1@ht\endcsname}
%>    \global\setbox\box@todo = \vsplit\pickup@box to \box@height
%>    \wd\box@todo=\textwidth
%>    \ifdim\ht\pickup@box>0pt
%>      \global\setbox\box@todo = \vbox{\unvbox\box@todo
%>            \hbox to \pickup@wd{\null\hfill\strut #3}}
%>      \global\setbox\rest@box =\vbox{\hsize=\pickup@wd
%>        \unvbox\rest@box\strut
%>        \hbox{\hskip-\shiftleft\strut #2}
%>        \unvbox\pickup@box}
%>    \fi
%>}
%>
%>        All you have to do now is set \rest@box at the top of the next
%>        page.
%>
%>        Johannes Braams
%>
Unfortunately not! I meant to try this approach when I could get round to it,
but never did. ( I used it to balance some text in columns before \multicol
existed---the first thing I ever did in LaTeX/TeX.)

You see, the appropriate break points for a question have to be determined by
the structure of the question, with appropriate penalties, eg, break before a
part in preference to before a subpart, and *never* before a displayed
equation. So---it gets complicated. But I agree that it can be done.

Mike

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% Dr M J Piff, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of %%
%% Sheffield, UK.                    e-mail: M.Piff@sheffield.ac.uk %%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%