[texhax] column breaks in eplain

[Barbara Beeton]

On Tue, 9 Oct 2012, James Mckernon wrote:

    Hi all,

    I'm new to TeX and experimenting with eplain's columns feature, but I
    don't seem to be able to get column breaks to work as expected. An
    example:

    \input eplain
    \hsize 188mm \vsize 188mm
    \hoffset 5mm \voffset 5mm
    \nopagenumbers
    \doublecolumns
    Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do
    eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad
    minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut
    aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in
    reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla
    pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in
    culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
    \columnfill
    Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do
    eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad
    minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut
    aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in
    reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla
    pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in
    culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
    \hrule
    \bye

    I would expect the two lorem ipsum paragraphs to be side-by-side, in
    the two columns on the first page. Instead, the last line of the first
    column gets forced into the top of the second column, which seems to
    force the second paragraph onto the next page. This doesn't seem
    specific to this example - however I try, \columnfill seems to pull
    the last line of the paragraph into the next column.

    Any advice for how to fix this?

i don't claim to be a regular eplain user,
but when \columnfill is encountered, tex
is still in horizpntal mode.

try putting \par or a blank line before
the \columnfill to switch to vertical mode.
						-- bb