On Saturday, December 30, 2000 7:48 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote:
> In this sort of situation I'd like to be able to force exactly
> equal spaces between all systems. Is there a way to do this?
I wrestled for many hours with this problem a few months back. With
the kind help of several of the TeXperts on the list I have coded a
95% solution into my working version of PMX. It will be in the next
public release (in the next month or two). When using PMX the
implementation will be entirely transparent to the user and will be
activated by a single command "Ae" at the start of the PMX input
file. I'll be glad to make a preliminary version available on
request (it does not come with the usual guarantee!). But for anyone
who enjoys the agony of writing TeX code, I'll describe the approach.
The idea is to make every system look very tall and deep by adding
"struts" (blank spaces at fixed elevations). Then the glue between
systems is set to allow a very large negative tolerance. Finally,
the page is terminated with \eject so that inter-staff space -- which
will now be negative -- will be distributed equally. To be more
specific,
1. \parskip is adjusted to include a very large negative tolerance;
e.g.,
\parskip 0pt plus 12\Interligne minus 99\Interligne
2. "struts" are defined:
\def\upamt{27}\def\dnamt{-20}
\def\dnstrut{\znotes\zcharnote{\dnamt}{~}\en}
\def\upstrut{\znotes&\zcharnote{\upamt}{~}\en}
3. An upstrut and downstrut are placed respectively in the uppermost
and lowermost staves of every interior system; a downstrut in the
bottom staff of the top system and an upstrut in the top staff of the
bottom system.
4. Each page is terminated with \eject .
--Don Simons
