[texhax] Add space and separator except at top of page in LaTeX

[Ryan Hinton]

Reinhard Kotucha wrote:
> Philip TAYLOR (Ret'd) writes:
>  > If it were /just/ vertical white space, TeX would
>  > do what you want automatically; however, you not
>  > only want to lose VWSP at top of page but a
>  > horizontal rule as well.  The key lies in what
>  > exactly TeX is defined to jettison at top of page,
>  > and the answer "discardable items" (pp.~110--112),
>  > which include glue, kerns and penalty items.
>  > 
>  > Now there's no way you can convert a rule into
>  > a kern or a penalty item, but you /can/ convert
>  > it into a special sort of glue called "leaders".
>  > So if you write (for example)
>  > 
>  > 	\leaders \hrule \vskip 0,4pt
>       This should be a period   ^
>
>  > 
>  > your rule will be concealed inside leaders, and
>  > therefore become discardable.
>  > 
>  > Whether this will work out of the box with LaTeX,
>  > I cannot say, but others more experienced with
>  > LaTeX should be able to advise.
>
> Hi Phil, 
> it seems that none of the commands mentioned above are redefined
> by LaTeX.  Try:
>
>   latex "\relax\nonstopmode\show\leaders\show\hrule\show\vskip\stop"
>
> (Maybe without the quotes on Windows.)  Unless I misunderstand the
> output, they all are primitives not replaced my macros.
>
> \leaders is used by some LaTeX macros, there is an additional macro
> \rule which takes an optional and two mandatory arguments.
>
> The LaTeX macro \vspace{0.4pt} is discardable, \vspace*{0.4pt} is not.
>
> <SNIP>
>
> Regards,
>   Reinhard
>
>   
Thank you for your excellent suggestions. This seems to be working just 
as I want. Thanks again!

-- 
Ryan Hinton
iobass at email.com