[Bug-groff] RE: Help with groff

[Ted Harding]

On 18-Sep-00 Christian Gaarn wrote:
> Forgive me if this is the wrong forum for my posting, but I am trying
> to get groff to print without hyphenation.  I have found very little
> info on this in my web searches.  Can anyone here help me out or point
> me to a good resource?

Hi Christian,

The forum is fine: this is one of the things is exists for.

The immediate solution is the command

  .nh

or

  .hy 0

which turns hyphenation off until contermanded (by .hy N for N > 0).

The thing to watch out for, if you are using macro packages, is that
it may get countermanded in the background if the package has stored
a default value for hyphenation mode, e.g. at the start of a new page or
a new paragraph.

For instance, the ms macros (in tmac.s) are initialised with

  .if !rHY .nr HY 14
  .hy \\n[HY]

i.e. the default is ON (.hy 14 > 0) such that

    Last (trapping) lines not hyphenated [N=2]
  + Last character of word not split off [N=4]
  + First 2 characters of word not split off [N=8]

and the hyphenation is reset to this at the start of the first page
and at every new paragraph by using the same command

  .hy \\n[HY]

Therefore, to suppress hyphenation throughout if using ms macros, you
should start your document with

  .nr HY 0
  .hy 0

before the "transition" to the first page (i.e. before any text material
is input or any command that initiates a page or a paragraph). Then it
will start off non-hyphenated (.hy 0) and will stay non-hyphenated every
time hyphenation is reset (.hy \\n[HY] = 0).

Much the same happens with mm macros (in tmac.m) except that the
registeris called \n[Hy], so you should start with

  .ny Hy 0
  .hy 0

With me macros (in tmac.e) I think you are relatively safe. There is
a default ".hy 14" command, but no associated register for resetting
hyphenation, so if you just start with

  .hy 0

you should be OK throughout.

If you are not using any macro packages, then just

  .hy 0

will do it for ever.

I hope this helps,
Ted.

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Date: 18-Sep-00                                       Time: 20:53:15
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