Hi Tadziu, > The behavior described may appear puzzling, but in > > > \Z'\l'4i''four inch > > the \Z'...' does mean "zero width" (really!)
A-ha! Of course. Silly me. :-) Together with Carten's comment on indent, I end up with this. .de settrap . it 1 gotline . di prevline .. . .de gotline . di . if \\n[dl]>\\n[.l] \ . tm Line \\n[.c] exceeds width. . ti 0 . prevline . settrap .. . .de enddi .di .. .em enddi . .pl 12 .ll 4i .nf .settrap . .de line \\l'\\$1-\\w'\\$1'u'\\$1 .. . First line of text. Second line of text. etc. .line 1i .line 2i .line 3i .line 4i .in 1i .line 2.5i .line 3.5i .in Any line exceeding 4i will be reported. The .em (enddi) prevents groff from complaining about the final diversion being incomplete. It works as expected, complaining about the 3.5i line that, together with the 1i indent, exceeds 4i, as do the last two lines of description. (Line 39 being the ".in".) $ nroff peter.tr Line 38 exceeds width. Line 40 exceeds width. Line 41 exceeds width. First line of text. Second line of text. etc. ________1i __________________2i ____________________________3i ______________________________________4i _____________________2.5i _______________________________3.5i Any line exceeding 4i will be reported. The .em (enddi) prevents groff from complaining about the final diversion being incomplete. $ Cheers, Ralph.