he INSTRUCTIONS FOR RUN80 FORMATTING PROGRAM
; Copyright (C) 1981, T. Shapin, Orange, CA. This documentation
may not be sold but may be distributed without charge.
FO Page #
RUN80 is a text formatting program that runs on an 8080
microprocessor system under CP/M.
It is useful in writing reports, manuals, etc. It will
automatically break text into pages, number the pages,
add headings and footings and justify the right margin.
You prepare your text by using any standard editor that
runs under the CP/M operating system.
You give your text file a name and an extension of "RNO"
(which stands for RUNOFF). For example, "REPT1.RNO".
You then type the CP/M command "RUN80 REPT1". This
starts the RUN80 program, reads a REPT1.RNO file from
your disk and produces a formatted file with the name
"REPT1.MEM" (where the "MEM" extension stands for memo).
This file can be typed by giving the CP/M command
"TYPE REPT1.MEM" if your hard copy terminal is connected
to your terminal.
While you are typing your text, you add
formatting commands that tell RUN80
how you want your test formatted. Each formatting command
is put on a line by itself and starts with a period. These
commands can be in either upper or lower case.
ul
Formatting Commands
The standard page layout is 60 characters wide and 66 lines
high. This fits nicely on an 8-1/2 by 11 inch sheet. If
you want to print a shorter page, say 8-1/2 inches high,
put the command
.pl 51
in your text file.
The page format is set up for a header and a footer.
This page was
prepared with a header command like this:
.he INSTRUCTIONS FOR RUN80 FORMATTING PROGRAM
Both the header and the footer are optional and can be changed
at any time. If the character"`#" appears in the header or
footer command line, it will be replaced by the page number.
The footer command line to prepare this page looks like this:
.FO Page `#
If you want to start the header or footer with blanks, start with
a quote, "'", which will prevent leading blanks from being discarded.
By default, the formatting program fills output lines by
packing as many input words as possible onto an output line
before printing it. The lines are also justified (right margins
are made even) by inserting extra spaces into the line before
output. People normally want filled text, which is why it is the
default. It can be turned off however by the no-fill command:
.nf
and thereafter lines will be printed without any rearrangement.
Filling can be turned back on with the fill command:
.fi
When .nf is encountered, there may be a partial line collected
but not yet output. The .nf will force this line out before
anything else happens. This action is called a "break". Many
commands cause a break as part of their action. To force a
break explicitly, use:
.br
To get extra blanks lines, you can use the skip command:
.sk
To skip more than one blank line, follow this with a number.
(A space is always required between the command and the number.)
For example:
.sk 2
will skip 2 blank lines.
A line that begins with spaces is a special case. If there is
nothing except spaces on the line, the line causes a break
and produces a number of blank lines equal to the current line
spacing. These lines are never discarded regardless of where they
appear, so they provide a way to get blank lines at the top of
a page. If there are "n" leading spaces followed by text, it
it causes a break and a temporary indent of "+n".
These actions will cause a document that contains
no formatting commands at all to be reasonably formatted.
The default line spacing is single space. To change to double
spacing, use the command:
.sp 2
Or use three for triple spacing, etc.
The page command causes a skip to the top of a new page and
also causes a break. If you add a number to this command, the
new page will be given that number:
.pg 15
To center the next line of output use:
.ce
and you can center the next five lines of output by adding a number:
.ce 5
or if you don't like to count lines use a big number:
ce 5
.ce 500
lots of
lines to be
centered
.ce 0 (to cancel the centering)
Underlining operates much like centering:
.ul n
causes the text on the next n lines to be underlined upon output.
But .ul does not cause a break, so words in filled text may be underlined
by:
words and words and
.ul
lots more
words.
to produce:
words and words and
ul
lots more
words.
The indent command controls the left margin.
.in n
causes all subsequent lines to be indented by "n" positions. The
normal default indent is "0". The command:
.rm n
sets the right margin to n. The line length of filled lines is the
difference between the right margin and indent values. These margin
commands do not cause a break.
The temporary indent sets the indent to position "n" for one output
line only.
.ti n
If "n" is less than the current indent, the indent is backwards
(a hanging indent).
We will show some examples of this.
Since absolute numbers are often awkward, RUN80 allows relative values
to be used as command arguments. All commands that allow a numeric
argument "n" also allow "+n" or "-n" instead, to signify a change in
the current value. For instance,
.rm -10
.in +10
shrinks the right margin by 10 from its current value and moves the
indent 10 places farther to the right. Thus,
.rm 10 and .rm +10
are quite different.
Relative values are particularly useful with ".ti" to temporarily
indent relative to the current indent.
.in +5
.ti +5
produces a left margin indented by 5, with the first line indented
by a further 5 spaces. And
.in +5
.ti -5
produces a hanging indent as in a numbered paragraph:
in +5
ti -5
1.##Now is the time for all good people
br
to come to the aid of their party.
in 0
Normally tabs in the input file are converted to single spaces.
Tab stops can be set with a tabs command, e.g. you can set tab
stops at column 9, 17, 25 and 35 by the command
.ta 9,17,25,35
in your text file. Then when you type a tab key in your text
(or control-I for terminals that do not have a tab key), enough
spaces will be added in the line to move the following characters
to the next tab position. Tab stops are cancelled by a ".ta 0" command,
where the first number is zero.
ul
Special Characters
The use of "`#" in headers and footings to get a page number was already
mentioned. When it is typed in text, it is used to get a non-expandable
blank in filled and justified lines. For example,
3.`#`#This is the reason ...
will always have exactly two blanks after the "3." even though the
program may add extra blanks to this line in order to make the right margin
even. When TABS and tab stops are used in justified text, non-expanding
blanks are inserted. In unfilled text, plain blanks are inserted.
A special escape character "``" is used to mean print the following
character and ignore and special meaning it otherwise has. It can be
used to print itself or the "`#" character.
nf
he SUMMARY OF RUN80 FORMATTING COMMANDS
PG
COMMAND BREAK? DEFAULT FUNCTION
------- ------ ------- --------
.BR YES CAUSE A LINE BREAK
.CE N YES N= 1 CENTER THE NEXT N LINES
.FI YES START FILLING (MOVE WORDS TO FILL LINES)
.FO NO EMPTY FOOTER TITLE
.HE NO EMPTY HEADER TITLE
.IN N NO N=0 INDENT N SPACES
.NF YES STOP FILLING
.PG N YES N=+1 BEGIN PAGE NUMBERED N
.PL N NO N=66 SET PAGE LENGTH TO N
.RM N NO N=60 SET RIGHT MARGIN TO N
.SK N YES N=1 SPACE DOWN N LINES
.SP N NO N=1 LINE SPACING IS N
.TA N,N... NO CLEARS SET TAB STOPS (10 MAX)
.TI N YES N=0 TEMPORARY INDENT OF N
.UL N NO NO N=1 UNDERLINE WORDS
IN NEXT N LINES
fi
ul
Special Characters
"`#" in a heading or footing will be changed to the page number.
"`#` in filled text will be changed to blank (non-expandable).
The escape character "``" means to print the next character
literally.
sk 20
@
