[texhax] Eplain and \mark

[Oleg Katsitadze]

I post the reply both to comp.text.tex and to texhax.

On Fri, Jun 16, 2006 at 06:14:26AM -0400, Stephen Moye wrote:
> I have tried to use eplain's columns, but the only marks that I can  
> get to appear in the headline are YYY and ZZZ.

Continuing the discussion from comp.text.tex, you said:

> I see now that the problem was that I was using \singlecolumn to
> balance the columns. Effectively, for some reason that is beyond my
> understanding, this makes firstmark=botmark.

The problem must be in invocations of the output routine.
Each call to the output routine (in \doublecolumns and in
\singlecolumn) starts the new cycle of marks, like on a new
page.

This might help:  after saying \singlecolumn, "carry over"
the \firstmark from the last double column material into the
single column environment, with the command

  \mark{\firstmark}

And after reverting back to \doublecolumns, use the same
command to further "carry over" the mark into the new double
column material.

The example below seems to work, but there might be further
complications in a real document due to line breaks, etc.
See if this works for you.  If not -- an example showing the
problem would surely help.

HTH,
Oleg

\input eplain

\vsize=1.5in
\headline={\firstmark\quad\hrulefill\quad\botmark}

\obeylines
\doublecolumns
1\mark{1}
2\mark{2}
3\mark{3}
4\mark{4}
\singlecolumn  \mark{\firstmark}%
%
\doublecolumns \mark{\firstmark}%
5\mark{5}
6\mark{6}
7\mark{7}
8\mark{8}
9\mark{9}
10\mark{10}
11\mark{11}
12\mark{12}
13\mark{13}
14\mark{14}
15\mark{15}
16\mark{16}
17\mark{17}
18\mark{18}
\singlecolumn  \mark{\firstmark}%
%
\doublecolumns \mark{\firstmark}%
19\mark{19}
21\mark{21}
22\mark{22}
23\mark{23}
24\mark{24}
25\mark{25}
26\mark{26}
27\mark{27}
28\mark{28}
29\mark{29}

\bye