[texhax] column breaks in eplain

[James Mckernon]

2012/10/9 Barbara Beeton <bnb at ams.org>:
> 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

A \par in the appropriate place doesn't appear to make a difference.