🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <16323@smunews.UUCP> leff@csvax.seas.smu.edu (leff) asks:
 > On our ditroff, the first three lines come out as solid lines, the way they 
 > should.  However, the fourth line comes out in a dashed manner.
 > 
 > \l'4i_'	 (1)
 > .br
 > ____________________________________    (2)
 > .br
 > \D'l 2000 0'		(3)
 > .br
 > \l'4i'		(4)

Note that at (1) and (2) troff will use the underline character.

With (3) troff uses a default character, normally a string of dots,
but dependent on the implementation of the back and, it could
directly translate to a device dependent ``draw a line command''.

At (4), troff uses yet another default chaarter, the baseline rule
(\(ru).

When drawing lines using \l'..' etc. troff builds actually a string
of characters, so (1) translates more or less directly into (2).
(1) has the advantage that you can specify the length in inches.

So (4) translates to something like \(ru\(ru\(ru etc.

My experience is that a lot of times the \(ru's have some white
space around them (The \(_ or the \(ul normally don't). My guess
is that that is your problem.

How do we solve this. Well, complain to whowever sold you the troff
& fonts. An \(ru for troff shouldn't have white space. That might
not help if you do your own troff hacking.

A quick hack is to do a
	.tr \(ru\(ul
command. Basically it will translate  the \(ru into a \(ul (or a
_, these things mean the same characters a lot of times). Of course
the problem with this is that the line will be drawn slightly off
(vertically) from where you want it.

	jaap