%-*-tex-*- \ifundefined{writestatus} \input status \relax \fi % \chcode{over} \def\cqu{\cquote{There is no one on earth who does what is right all the time and never makes a mistake.}{Ecclesiastes Chap. 7, Verse 20}} \chapterhead{over}{OVERFULL BOXES\cr and\cr OTHER DISASTERS} Sometimes \tex\ and \intex\ have trouble making a {\it best} decision that is good enough. The result of this is a message that there is an {\it overfull} or {\it underfull} box. Chapter \ref{parcont} suggests increasing the value of |\tolerance| and |\pretolerance| so that \tex\ will accept worse looking lines. This is fine except that the result is less than beautiful. \tex\ indicates an overfull box by putting a big ugly black line at the end. This book has a few overfull boxes to demonstrate how they look. This chapter suggests ways of both avoiding and hiding overfull boxes. \shead{overcomform}{Command Forms} \bshortcomlist \pri\@|\hfuzz [=] |&\tex\ tells of overfull horizontal boxes only if they are overfull by more than ||. {\it Plain} default is 0.1pt. \cr \pri\@|\overfullrule [=] |&\tex\ places a rule or line of width || at the end of an overfull box and of the same height as the box.\cr \pri\@|\vfuzz [=] |&\tex\ tells of overfull vertical boxes only if they are overfull by more than ||. {\it Plain} default is 0.1pt. \cr \eshortcomlist \shead{action}{Overfull Boxes --- Action} The recommended way to handle an overfull box is to rewrite the passage that is causing the offence. This will generally work quite well if the box is an isolated event. It has the feature of not destroying the beauty of the document. However, if you want to hear about overfull boxes but don't want the black marks let |\overfullrule = 0pt|. If you don't want to hear about them, increase the size of |\hfuzz| and |\vfuzz|. |\finalversion| increases |\hfuzz| and obliterates the black marks. Overfull |vboxes| are quite rare, as are underfull |hboxes|. If there is an underfull |hbox|, check it very carefully. The most likely error is not putting in glue to fill in the box. An example would be using |\line| instead of |\centerline|. Underfull |vboxes| are not as rare. They result when the |vboxes| on the page are quite large and the glue between them is not very stretchy. Pages with figures, tables or multicolumn format are the most likely candidates. The only solution may be a rearrangement of material in the document, forced filling of the bottom of the page. \tex\ provides a \@|\raggedbottom| command that puts glue at the bottom of a short page to prevent it from being stretched out. Whether this is an adequate solution to the problem is a matter of aesthetic debate. In general, information about over and under full boxes is desirable. \begingroup \bf When \tex\ indicates that there is an underfull box, it stretches, unless |\raggedbottom| is active, all stretchable glue. This may result in pages that look strange. Only glue between paragraphs, before and after display mathematics, between all list items, and before section \dots\ heads is stretchable. Interline glue is not stretchable either in {\it Plain\/} or \intex. In extreme cases (badness greater 10000) the page will have very disturbing spacing indeed. \par\endgroup \ejectpage \done