[texhax] Concept of double page spread in TeX/LaTeX (& memoir)

[Philip TAYLOR]

William F. Adams wrote:


> If memory serves, this is one of the things which TeX simply doesn't  
> take into
> consideration, right?

> Does the ``\marks'' primitive in e-tex help with this sort of thing? If  
> not,
> does something else or has anyone else asked after / suggested such?

Well, the first thing to say is that \marks isn't e-TeX specific;
all that e-TeX did was to make /more/ marks available.  There is
no doubt that if you were working at the TeX (as opposed to LaTeX)
level, then \marks might well be of use, but such things are
rather harder to access (usefully) in LaTeX, and therefore you would
probably do better to either seek advice from a LaTeX guru, or
(for this project at least) to eschew LaTeX and use TeX.

 From the TeX perspective, what /exactly/ do you mean by
"a counter that resets  after a recto, and starts anew on a verso" ?

If you mean a counter /whose value is accessible and correct in the
main-line code/ (as opposed to accessible and correct during the
output routine), then I can't see (at the moment) how this could
be achieved.  As you correctly mention in your intro., TeX's
asynchronous page breaking mechanism gets in the way : the output
routine knows "where" you are in relation to a spread, but your
main-line code does not, as page-breaking takes place after para.s
have been assembled.  So while you /might/ be able to create a counter
whose value is well-defined /between/ paragraphs, it would be
very hard to create one whose value is well-defined /within/
a paragraph.

If you were to say a little more about what exactly you are trying
to achieve, it might be possible to offer more help.

Philip Taylor