Re: Enumerator spacing in bullet lists with mom

[Peter Schaffter]

Jan --

On Tue, Apr 16, 2024, Jan Eden wrote:
> I am currently testing the mom and mm macro packages, and noticed that
> mom uses sensible defaults for almost anything out of the box.
> 
> Bullet lists (or lists with other static enumerators like dashes),
> however, are set with very little space between the enumerator and the
> item text. This is not true for ALPHA or DIGIT lists, which are set very
> well.

Processing your test file with the lastest mom (2.6_c), the spacing
between bullets/dashes and subsequent text looks fine and observes
the typographic conventions with which I am familiar.  I'm attaching
a pdf of the output (I added a dashed list) so you can verfiy it
looks the same as what you have been seeing.  If not, update to
2.6_c.

If mom's default bullet/dash spacing is still, to your eyes, not
correct, you change it with the USER argument to LIST.  For example,

  .LIST USER "\[bu]\ "

adds a non-stretching wordspace to the bullet.  If you want more
precise control, e.g. 3 points of space,

  .LIST USER "\[bu]\*[FWD 3p]"
or
  .LIST USER "\[bu]\h'3p'"

The first uses mom's inline escape for forward movements, the second
uses groff's native escape for the same thing.  The two are
equivalent.  \[en] can be used if you want dashed lists with extra
spacing between the dash and the text.

> This is my test file:
> 
> .PAPER A4
> 
> .TITLE "Some Title"

A piece of advice: As a general rule, it is preferable to insert
blank lines (visual spacers) into mom text files by putting a period
(dot) at the start of the line, like so

  .PAPER A4
  . 
  .TITLE "Some Title"

-- 
Peter Schaffter
https://www.schaffter.ca

list-test.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document