[texhax] The fundamental problem ...

[Donald Arseneau]

Peter Davis <pfd at pfdstudio.com> writes:

> On Sat, Jun 25, 2011 at 8:45 PM, Donald Arseneau <asnd at triumf.ca> wrote:
> 
> > Peter Davis <pfd at pfdstudio.com> writes:
> >
> > > The flowfram package comes pretty close to what I need, 
> >
> > You'll have to keep travk of line-counts and usr \parshape.

"track"

> Thanks, Donald, but I don't see how \parshape let's me know how much of the
> text fit on a line (or set of lines).

It keeps track for you so you don't need to, but you need to know
how many lines will fit in the current frame.

>  I can work out that the height of a
> box divided by the baselineskip tells me how many lines will fit, but how
> can I determine what text has to overflow into the next box?

Let's say the first frame is 3 in wide and holds 8 lines of text,
but the second is 2 in wide.

At each paragraph, knowing how many lines can fit in the remainder
of the first frame, you set a parshape.  If three lines can fit,
set

\parshape 4 0pt 3in 0pt 3in 0pt 3in 0pt 2in

(The final width applies to all following lines)

You can keep track of the lines-so-far by examining
\prevgraf between paragraphs.

This is all supposition though.  I had the impression 
that flowfram already set the parshape for you, but didn't
really check ever.

Donald Arseneau                          asnd at triumf.ca