[Tugindia] how to identify the page break without xdvi

[David Kastrup]

Sandip P Deshmukh <deshmukh at escortsmumbai.com> writes:

> On Thu, Feb 20, 2003 at 10:25:44AM +0100, David Kastrup wrote:
> > Sandip P Deshmukh <deshmukh at escortsmumbai.com> writes:
> > 
> > > On Thu, Feb 20, 2003 at 01:09:38PM +0530, S.C.Phatak wrote:
> > > > 
> > > i would much prefer to edit tex in vim in console, do basic
> > > formatting like managing pagination, etc. *then* start x and use
> > > xdvi for finer formatting.
> > 
> > If you consider "managing pagination" "basic formatting", chances are
> > that you are using LaTeX wrong.  LaTeX goes to great pains to choose
> > page breaks appropriately itself.  It manages placing figures,
> > footnotes and other material so that pages will be laid out well.
> > Cross references are managed automatically and refer to the right
> > page numbers.  Pagination is _not_ supposed to be something that the
> > user should need to worry about.  As a consequence, changing paper
> > formats, switching to twocolumn format, converting to HTML and so on
> > are usually quite painless _if_ the user has entered the things as he
> > should.  Manual page breaks are a very bad idea.
> 
> this specific question arose becuase i wanted to make sure that the last
> bullet or just two one line bullets do not go on the next page. this may
> not be standard but that is how i wanted it.

You must be aware what "\pagebreak" means: it means "no matter how bad
it looks, you make the page break here.  Even if we had a break two
lines before".  This is a bad idea since it entirely override's TeX
mechanism for making a good decision for a page break.  The way to do
it is to adjust TeX's mechanism for what it considers bad.  For
example, the normal page layout parameters specify very little
flexibility: pages should be filled, and TeX can manage mostly only by
adjusting inter-paragraph space a bit, but only if you separate your
paragraphs with adjustable space.  So it has little way of moving
large amounts of material around.  If you want to tell it "I'd rather
have my pages 4 lines short", you can.  \raggedbottom relaxes some of
that, and if you take a look at how it is defined, you can increase
the amount of material TeX is going to dare leave open at a page's
end.

Then never say \pagebreak to suggest things, but the weaker
\pagebreak[1] to \pagebreak[3].  The default \pagebreak will break a
page even if TeX knows the break to be terrible (such as when just a
single line is on the page).

> well, most of my input is plain english text - may be tabulated and
> bulleted or numbered. etc. but i have read praises on auctex.

AUCTeX makes the usual compile, find errors, preview, recompile cycle
easier, and it indents and wraps your text according to structure
while you enter it.  There is also some package called "auctex" for
vim, I believe, which sports this name because it supposedly provides
something similar, and there is also a latex-suite or so for vim.  I
have not tried those myself, so I can't judge their utility.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum
UKTUG FAQ: <URL:http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html>