Re: [Groff] tbl and inter-column spacing

[Joerg van den Hoff]

On Tue, Jul 15, 2008 at 06:01:18PM +0200, Tadziu Hoffmann wrote:
> 
> > but  I  still  would appreciate to get some hint how to tune
> > the inter-column spacing.
> 
> From "Tbl -- A Program to Format Tables":
> 
>   Space between columns -- A number may follow the key-letter.
>       This indicates the amount of separation between this
>       column and the next column. The number normally specifies
>       the separation in ens. If the "expand" option is used,
>       then these numbers are multiplied by a constant such
>       that the table is as wide as the current line length. The
>       default column separation number is 3. If the separation
>       is changed the worst case (largest space requested)
>       governs.
> 
yes, thanks. and my problem relates to the `expand' directive
(cf. my other mail to werner and the list).

the above is quite clear and it seems that for too wide tables
`expand' actually uses the constant value zero to multipy the column
separation (which still does not guarantee that the final table is
as wide as the line length, though). 

overall, I think it would be nicer if `expand' would check that
the final column separation does not drop below, say, 1 'en'.
zero separation just does'nt look right...

joerg